Chapter 2 - The Price of Believing
Two patrol cars reached the Welles estate six minutes later.
Detective Lena Ortiz arrived twenty-two minutes after that.
By then, Richard had stopped speaking.
His attorney had been called.
Emily sat at the enormous kitchen island wrapped in a gray wool blanket Catherine had given her, although she was not cold.
Her hands would not stop shaking.
Detective Ortiz was in her early forties, calm-eyed and deliberate. She did not begin by asking Emily why she had been alone with Richard. She did not ask what Emily had worn. She did not ask whether she had misunderstood him.
She asked one question.
“Are you safe sitting here?”
Emily nodded.
Catherine stood several feet away.
Ortiz noticed.
“You don’t have to remain in the room, Mrs. Welles.”
Emily looked at Catherine.
“Stay.”
Catherine stayed.
Emily described what had happened.
Slowly.
The locked door.
Richard’s hand around her wrist.
The torn shoulder.
Her attempt to reach the exit.
The accusation when Catherine entered.
When Emily finished, Detective Ortiz asked Catherine about the security system.
“The camera is in a common area,” Catherine said. “I had several installed six weeks ago.”
“Why?”
Richard’s attorney, who had just arrived, turned his head.
Catherine hesitated.
That hesitation did not escape Emily.
Ortiz noticed too.
“Why did you install them?”
“I suspected my husband was hiding something.”
“What kind of something?”
“Financial misconduct.”
Richard laughed from across the room.
His attorney touched his arm.
Catherine ignored him.
“I began seeing unexplained transfers from the Bellmont Family Foundation. Richard told me they were charitable distributions. I asked for supporting records. He became defensive.”
“So you installed cameras?”
“In common areas of my own home.”
“Who knew?”
“No one except the security contractor.”
Ortiz requested access to the original files, not merely Catherine’s phone copies. Catherine gave her the name of the cloud-security provider and agreed to preserve the account.
Richard’s attorney finally spoke.
“My client denies any assault.”
Emily looked at him.
He continued.
“The recording speaks for itself,” Catherine said.
“Recordings can be incomplete.”
Emily laughed once.
It was not amusement.
It was disbelief.
Richard looked directly at her.
“You grabbed me first.”
Ortiz stood.
“Mr. Welles, stop.”
Richard’s attorney pulled him aside.
Emily stared at the marble floor.
Ten minutes later, Richard was escorted from the mansion.
Not in handcuffs.
Not yet.
Detective Ortiz explained that investigators would preserve the recording, interview everyone, consult prosecutors and determine charges based on the evidence.
To Emily, it felt unbearably slow.
“He just walks out?”
“For tonight,” Ortiz said. “There’s a temporary protection order being requested. He has been instructed not to contact you. I know that doesn’t feel like enough.”
“It doesn’t.”
“No,” Ortiz said. “It probably doesn’t.”
Catherine flinched.
After police left, the mansion became silent.
Emily went upstairs to change.
She placed the torn uniform inside a clean garment bag instead of throwing it away. Detective Ortiz had told her to preserve it.
When she returned downstairs wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, Catherine was sitting alone beneath the chandelier.
The hidden camera was almost invisible.
“I should have told you,” Catherine said.
Emily stopped.
“Told me what?”
“That I suspected Richard.”
Emily’s face hardened.
“You suspected he was stealing.”
“Yes.”
“Did you suspect anything else?”
Catherine did not answer quickly enough.
Emily felt something inside her tighten.
“What did you know?”
“I knew he had been behaving differently with female employees.”
“What does differently mean?”
“He asked that some staff work later when I was away. He complained about uniforms. He asked personal questions about you.”
Emily stared at her.
“And you said nothing?”
“I didn’t know—”
“You knew enough to put cameras in the house.”
“For the finances.”
“You watched him.”
“Not continuously.”
“You watched enough.”
Catherine stood.
“Emily, I am trying to help.”
“No. You helped when you walked through that door. Before that, you were protecting your company.”
Catherine’s face changed.
The accusation struck because it was true.
“I thought Richard might be moving money,” she said. “I did not think he would attack you.”
“You didn’t have to predict tonight. You could have warned me something was wrong.”
“I should have.”
Emily looked away.
There was no satisfaction in hearing Catherine admit it.
Only exhaustion.
Catherine’s phone rang.
It was Evelyn Hart, chairwoman of Bellmont Holdings.
Catherine almost ignored it.
Then she remembered Richard’s final words.
By Monday morning, you won’t own the mansion, Bellmont, or the camera system.
She answered.
“Evelyn?”
The older woman’s voice was tense.
“Catherine, I need you to listen carefully.”
“What happened?”
“Richard called an emergency board meeting for eight tomorrow morning.”
Catherine’s stomach dropped.
“He can’t.”
“He already has.”
“On what grounds?”
There was a pause.
“He says Bellmont is facing an immediate leadership crisis.”
“Because he attacked my employee?”
“No.”
Evelyn lowered her voice.
“He says you’ve been secretly diverting charitable funds.”
Catherine closed her eyes.
“That’s insane.”
“He sent documents.”
“What documents?”
“Authorizations bearing your signature.”
Catherine remembered the papers she had signed three months earlier.
Breakfast.
Coffee.
Richard standing behind her, impatient.
Routine compliance forms, he had said.
Nothing urgent.
Nothing unusual.
Catherine gripped the counter.
“How much?”
Evelyn answered.
“Twelve point four million dollars.”
Emily watched Catherine’s face lose its color.
“And Catherine?”
“Yes?”
“The destination accounts are connected to a company called Cedar Meridian LLC.”
The word struck her.
Cedar.
The same name from Richard’s secret conversation.
Catherine turned toward the hidden camera.
For the first time, she realized Richard had not merely planned to frame Emily for theft.
May you like
He had built another frame around his own wife.
And Catherine had signed it herself.
