Chapter 2 - Three Months Standing
Emma did not speak to Adrian for twelve minutes.
She knew because the antique clock in the library chimed once when they entered and again when she finally broke the silence.
“You used me.”
Adrian stood beside the fireplace.
Standing.
That fact still felt impossible.
The wheelchair remained outside the library with a security officer guarding it.
Malcolm had been asked to stay in his suite.
Vanessa had been escorted to a guest room.
Nobody had been permitted to leave the estate.
Adrian rubbed his left thigh.
Emma noticed.
“Does it hurt?”
He looked surprised by the question.
Then ashamed.
“Yes.”
She hated that she still cared.
“How much?”
“Enough.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Some days more than others.”
Emma turned away.
Three months.
She had spent three months measuring medication schedules, arranging physical therapy, moving furniture, checking ramps, and defending him when board members whispered that Adrian Blackwood was finished.
All while he had been walking behind closed doors.
“When?”
“June seventeenth.”
She looked back.
“You remember the exact day.”
“I took four steps.”
Emma’s anger slipped for an instant.
He continued.
“Dr. Peter Lang said the nerve compression was resolving faster than expected. By July, I could walk across the rehabilitation room. By August, I could manage stairs with a rail.”
“And you told me none of it.”
“I wanted to.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why me?”
Adrian frowned.
“What?”
“You fooled reporters. Fine. You fooled shareholders. Fine. You fooled Vanessa and Malcolm because you suspected them. But why me?”
He had no immediate answer.
That hurt more.
Emma folded her arms.
“Exactly.”
“You were safer if you didn’t know.”
“That’s what men say when they want forgiveness for making decisions for women.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“It is exactly what you meant.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“Emma, someone tampered with my car. Someone accessed my private medical records. Someone altered documents submitted to the trust.”
“And therefore you decided I wasn’t allowed to choose whether I wanted to be part of your investigation?”
“I decided anyone who knew I could walk became a target.”
Emma laughed bitterly.
“I was already a target the moment I stayed.”
The words landed.
Adrian looked down.
After his accident, friends had stopped visiting.
Business partners had sent flowers and lawyers.
Vanessa had stayed six weeks.
Emma had stayed every day.
She had not been hired as a nurse.
Before the crash she managed the Blackwood Foundation’s educational programs. Afterward, when Adrian refused unfamiliar caregivers, she had temporarily moved into the estate’s guest wing.
Temporary had become seven months.
Emma walked toward the window.
“Who knew?”
“My physical therapist. Dr. Lang. My private investigator, Daniel Cross. And me.”
“Lang?”
“Yes.”
She turned sharply.
“The same doctor who signed your permanent-disability assessment?”
Adrian’s expression changed.
“He didn’t.”
“I saw the document.”
“So did I.”
Emma felt a chill.
“The signature looked real.”
“It was scanned from an older form.”
“Who submitted it?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to prove.”
He opened a desk drawer and removed a thick folder.
Inside were bank records, security logs, copies of medical reports, photographs, and handwritten notes.
Emma stared.
“You’ve been investigating everyone.”
“Yes.”
“Me too?”
Adrian didn’t answer quickly enough.
She gave a small nod.
“Of course.”
“Emma—”
“No. Show me.”
“What?”
“My file.”
“There isn’t—”
“Do not lie to me again.”
Adrian’s face tightened.
He crossed to a locked cabinet and entered a code.
He removed a thin blue folder.
EMMA CARTER was written across the front.
She took it from him.
Her hands shook as she opened it.
There were copies of her employment history.
Bank statements.
Phone records.
Photographs of her meeting her younger brother David.
A background report on her late father.
She stared at Adrian.
“You investigated my family?”
“I had Daniel verify everyone with access to me.”
“My father has been dead eight years.”
“I know.”
“Then why is his pension history in here?”
Adrian went silent.
Emma flipped another page.
A document from Blackwood Holdings appeared.
RIVERSIDE MANUFACTURING RESTRUCTURING — EMPLOYEE PENSION TERMINATION.
Her father’s name appeared among hundreds.
Samuel Carter.
Emma’s throat tightened.
“My father worked there for twenty-two years.”
“I know.”
“He lost almost everything when Blackwood Holdings closed the plant.”
Adrian nodded.
“You told me that closure happened before you controlled the company.”
“It did.”
“Then why investigate it?”
“Because my father authorized it.”
Emma stared.
Thomas Blackwood had been dead five years.
Publicly, he was remembered as a disciplined industrialist, philanthropist, and the architect of Blackwood Holdings’ modern expansion.
Adrian had spent most of his adult life trying to be less ruthless than him.
“What does this have to do with your accident?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Emma turned another page.
A handwritten note had been clipped to an old internal memo.
It read:
Riverside losses redirected through M.B. entities. T.B. approved silence.
Emma looked up.
“M.B.”
“Malcolm Blackwood.”
Her anger changed shape.
“You think your uncle stole money from the company?”
“I think he did something worse.”
Before Adrian could explain, the library door opened.
Daniel Cross entered.
The private investigator was in his mid-forties, compact, calm, and permanently tired-looking.
“We have a problem.”
Adrian turned.
“What?”
Daniel held up a tablet.
“The foyer security footage from tonight is gone.”
Emma stared.
“Gone?”
“Deleted from the local server three minutes after the wheelchair incident.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“Who has administrator access?”
“Four people.”
Daniel looked at the screen.
“You. Head of security Cole Mercer. Malcolm.”
He paused.
“And Vanessa.”
Emma said, “Vanessa has access to the security system?”
Adrian looked equally surprised.
“She shouldn’t.”
Daniel tapped the screen.
“She does now.”
He turned the tablet around.
A security authorization request had been approved two months earlier.
The approving signature belonged to Adrian.
Emma looked at him.
Adrian shook his head.
“I never signed that.”
Daniel nodded.
“That’s not the worst part.”
He opened another file.
The same authorization credential had been used seven months earlier.
The night Adrian crashed.
Emma felt the room shrink.
“To do what?”
Daniel looked at Adrian.
“To open the Blackwood estate service garage at 11:42 p.m.”
Adrian’s car had left at midnight.
Daniel lowered the tablet.
“And according to the garage camera archive, someone entered twelve minutes before the brake line was cut.”
Emma whispered, “Who?”
Daniel’s expression turned grim.
“We don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Because that footage was deleted too.”
Adrian looked toward the dark window.
Emma suddenly understood.
The same person who had erased tonight’s evidence might have erased evidence seven months ago.
Daniel continued.
“But they made one mistake.”
He enlarged a security-log entry.
The access credential was not Vanessa’s.
Not Malcolm’s.
Not Adrian’s.
It belonged to Emma.
She stared at her own name.
“That’s impossible.”
Daniel looked at her carefully.
Adrian did not speak.
Emma slowly turned toward him.
“Now I understand why you had a file on me.”
Adrian’s silence answered before he did.
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For the first time since the wheelchair stopped at the stairs, Emma wondered whether Adrian had ever truly trusted her at all.
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