Chapter 6 - Blood and Ink
Within forty-eight hours, the hospital room became a war room.
Evelyn moved three of the city’s top forensic accountants, two former federal prosecutors, and a battery of private investigators directly into the Whitmore Tower executive suites.
Julian, realizing that Sarah’s recovery meant his imminent destruction, struck back with the desperate brutality of a trapped animal.
On Thursday morning, while Sarah was taking her first steps down the hospital hallway supported by two nurses, Evelyn received an urgent call from Arthur Pendelton, the Whitmore Foundation's chief legal counsel.
"Mrs. Whitmore, Julian has filed an emergency injunction in Manhattan Surrogate Court," Arthur said over speakerphone, his voice panicked. "He’s challenging Sarah’s identity. He claims the woman in Presbyterian is an imposter recruited by an organized fraud ring, exploiting your emotional vulnerability. He’s petitioning for temporary power of attorney over your estate on the grounds of mental incapacity."
Evelyn didn't even flinch. She took a sip of her Earl Grey tea. "Let him try. We have the birth certificate, we have my daughter’s dental records, and the DNA test will be ready tomorrow."
"That’s the problem, Evelyn," Arthur warned. "Julian just petitioned to have the DNA testing handed over to an independent lab under his oversight. If he bribes the lab director, he can delay the certification for months. In the meantime, the court could freeze all your personal assets and give him interim authority over the foundation board. There is a board meeting scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. If he calls a vote of no confidence while your sanity is in question, he can legally remove you as CEO."
Sitting on the windowsill, swinging my legs, I listened quietly to the adults talking. I looked down at the old, beat-up cloth backpack Maria had retrieved from my mother’s temporary shelter locker.
"Grandma?" I said.
Evelyn turned to me, her expression instantly softening from boardroom predator to doting grandmother. "Yes, my sweetheart?"
"Mom kept a secret book," I said, unzipping the frayed outer pocket of the backpack. "She said if anything ever happened to her, I should give it to a policeman."
Sarah, who was leaning against the doorway with a walker, looked over, her eyes widening. "The journal... Maya, you had it in your bag?"
"You put it in there the night the landlord kicked us out," I said, pulling out a small, water-damaged leather notebook tied shut with a fraying shoelace.
Sarah looked at Evelyn. "Before Julian chased me out of my apartment, he met with me in a diner. He thought he could buy my total silence. He offered me fifty thousand dollars in cash if I signed a legal waiver relinquishing all Whitmore trust claims for Maya forever. I kept an audio recorder in my purse, Mother. The micro-cassette is sewn inside the back cover of that notebook. He bragged about everything. About how his father set me up... how he bribed the probate judge... and how you were just a pathetic old woman waiting to die so he could take the towers."
Evelyn stared at the notebook, her eyes glittering with dangerous, unyielding triumph.
"Arthur," Evelyn said calmly into the phone. "Cancel the court hearing."
"Cancel it? Why?"
May you like
"Because tomorrow afternoon, we are going to attend the emergency board meeting in person."
***
