My husband stood beside my hospital bed, performing grief for the nurses after the “accident” he had arranged to kill me. The moment we were alone, he confessed everything—but he had no idea I had already turned my hospital room into a trap.

I picked up the third page of Thomas Mercer’s letter. Unlike the first two pages, which were filled with personal reflections and warnings, the final page was a neatly organized ledger of financial details.

At the very bottom of the page, underlined twice in dark red ink, was a single entry:

Ask Adrian why Northstar Advisory Group exists.

I pointed to the name. “Lena, look at this.”

Detective Morris leaned over my bed, studying the handwritten text. Her eyes suddenly sharpened. “Northstar Advisory Group?”

“You recognize it?” I asked, my forensic instincts kicking in instantly.

“We ran a preliminary financial trace on the contractor Adrian paid to sabotage your balcony railing,” Lena revealed, pulling out her notepad. “The twenty-thousand-dollar deposit wasn't paid from Adrian’s personal bank account. It was wired from a corporate checking account registered to Northstar Advisory Group.”

A cold dread washed over me. “So the money used to hire my attempted killer came directly from a company my late father-in-law flagged nine years ago.”

“We tried to pull the incorporation records for Northstar yesterday,” Lena explained. “It’s a shell entity registered in Delaware. The registered agent is a blind trust company that hides the true beneficial owners behind a wall of legal privacy.”

“Delaware shell entities aren't invisible to forensic accountants,” I said coldly. “Not when you know where the original wire transfers originated. Give me my laptop, Emma.”

“Hannah, you’re supposed to be resting,” Emma protested gently.

“I will rest when my husband and his mother are locked in high-security prison cells for the rest of their natural lives,” I declared. “Hand me the computer.”

I opened a specialized forensic auditing database I still had remote consultant access to. I began plugging in the tax identification numbers listed in Thomas Mercer’s letter.

Within twenty minutes, I bypassed three layers of shell corporations.

The true legal owner of Northstar Advisory Group appeared on the screen.