Part 3
My father died three years earlier in his penthouse bedroom overlooking Central Park.
Stage four pancreatic cancer. Eleven months between diagnosis and burial. I watched him fade from a man who could silence an entire room with one raised eyebrow into someone whose hands shook holding a glass of water.
But I was not there at the end.
That fact haunted me quietly for years.
I was in Shanghai finalizing the Lumina deal Richard insisted I could not postpone. Diana, my father’s second wife and Emily’s mother, called me in the middle of negotiations.
“Clara,” she cried, “you need to come home. The nurse says it could be hours.”
I chartered a plane. I prayed inside a cabin above the Pacific. I landed too late.
Diana met me at the door wrapped in pearls and grief.
“He went peacefully,” she said. “He just fell asleep.”
Later, Richard called, his voice heavy with sympathy. “I’m so sorry. I was at the office keeping everything together.”
Now, three years later, Daniel’s investigators proved Richard lied.
He had not been at the office.
He entered my father’s building that night using a temporary guest fob signed out by Diana. Arrival time: 9:47 p.m. My father was pronounced dead at 10:20.
Then came the medication logs.
Two additional morphine doses. Stronger than prescribed. Initialed by Diana.
One administered before my father died.
One logged afterward.
I sat in the library of my penthouse well past midnight staring at the documents until the words blurred together.
It did not prove murder.
It proved something else entirely.
A lie had been standing inside my grief for three years.
The following morning, I met Diana at the Carlyle.
She arrived wearing cream Chanel and pearls, carrying the scent of expensive perfume and old resentment.
“Clara, darling,” she said, air-kissing beside my cheek. “This whole ordeal with Richard is terrible.”
“Did he pay you before or after he convinced you to question my father’s death?”
Her expression changed so fast I almost felt sorry for her.
“I have no idea what you mean.”
I slid the bank statement across the table.
“Two hundred fifty thousand dollars. Offshore shell company. Traced back to Richard. Tell me what he purchased.”
Her hand shook around her water glass.
“He said you were destroying him,” she whispered. “He said you’d destroy me too.”
“So you helped him imply I killed my father?”
“I never accused you.”
“You hired a lawyer to raise suspicion.”
“I had questions!” she snapped, and for the first time the polished widow cracked open. “You weren’t there, Clara. He was suffering. Begging for peace. The nurse kept talking about dosage restrictions while he was in agony. I was his wife.”
“You administered extra morphine.”
“I helped him.”
“Richard was there.”
She looked away.
“Why?”
Tears filled her eyes. “Because I called him. I was frightened. Robert kept saying strange things. He said Richard was dangerous. He said I should call you, but you were in China building your empire while he was dying.”
The accusation landed.
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