Chapter 7 - The Depths of Treachery
The federal investigation pulled back the curtains on an even deeper layer of treachery than we had anticipated. Vanessa had been arrested trying to board an Amtrak train out of Union Station, carrying three forged passports and a suitcase containing two hundred thousand dollars in bearer bonds.
Two weeks after the raid, Caleb and I were summoned to the federal building downtown for a briefing with Assistant U.S. Attorney Martinez.
“We’ve spent the last ten days flipping Aethelgard’s lead accountant,” Martinez said, spreading a series of financial flowcharts across his desk. “And we found something that directly involves you, Martin. Specifically regarding your wife’s medical history.”
Evelyn, who was sitting next to me holding a small cup of herbal tea, leaned forward. “What do you mean, my history?”
“Your diagnosis, Mrs. Sterling,” Martinez said gently. “The advanced stage-four diagnosis you received eight months ago from the oncology clinic at Mercy General.”
I felt a sudden, icy grip tighten around my throat. “What about it? The treatment has been brutal, but Project Resolute is keeping the cells from mutating further.”
“We reviewed the communications between Marcus Vance and the chief administrator at that clinic—a man named Dr. Robert Hasting,” Martinez explained, pointing to a highlighted section of the ledger. “Vance paid Hasting over four hundred thousand dollars over the last two years. The payments began three months before your initial diagnosis.”
Caleb stood up, his chair scraping loudly against the floor. “Are you saying my mother isn't sick?”
“No, she is sick,” Martinez clarified quickly. “But the severity of the diagnosis was systematically falsified. The initial biopsy reports were altered in the clinic’s laboratory database. Mrs. Sterling, you have a stage-two, highly treatable variant of cellular mutation. It was never terminal. They inflated the diagnosis to create a sense of desperation within your family, knowing that Martin would pour every available resource—and every bit of his focus—into Project Resolute, leaving the rest of the company’s infrastructure vulnerable to Vanessa’s infiltration.”
The room seemed to tilt. I looked over at Evelyn. Her eyes were wide, a single tear spilling over her lower lid and tracking down her pale cheek. She wasn't crying from sorrow; she was crying from the overwhelming, sudden realization that her death sentence had been a corporate fabrication.
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“Stage two?” I whispered, my voice trembling as I grabbed both of her hands. “Evelyn… you’re going to live. You’re going to be fine.”
She let out a ragged, beautiful sob, burying her face in my shoulder as the heavy shroud of mortality that had hung over our family for eight long months shattered into a thousand harmless pieces.
