Chapter 12 - NINE DAYS BEFORE HAROLD DIED
The medical examiner reopened Harold Bennett's death investigation that afternoon.
His body had already been cremated, which made the task difficult.
But Harold's hospital records remained.
So did blood samples from his final admission.
Detective Chen requested toxicology testing that had never been performed.
Victoria entered protective custody.
In exchange, she gave prosecutors access to a cloud account containing hundreds of messages between her and Samuel.
Most made her look guilty.
She knew that.
She handed them over anyway.
One message stood apart.
It was dated nine days before Harold died.
Samuel wrote.
HE KNOWS TOO MUCH.
Victoria responded.
THEN FIX IT.
Mark read the exchange twice.
His hands tightened.
"What did she mean by fix it?"
Chen answered.
"Victoria claims she meant convince Harold not to report them."
"Do you believe her?"
"I believe evidence."
"What evidence?"
"We're looking."
The next messages helped Victoria slightly.
She repeatedly asked whether Samuel had persuaded Harold to reconsider.
Samuel responded that the problem was being handled.
Three days later, Victoria asked to see her father.
Samuel told her Harold was ill and needed rest.
Mark remembered that week.
Harold canceled lunch with him.
He said his blood pressure was unstable.
Mark had accepted the explanation.
Now every memory felt contaminated.
The toxicology results arrived two days later.
Harold's preserved blood contained traces of digoxin far above the expected therapeutic range.
Harold had never been prescribed digoxin.
Daniel stared at the report.
"Poison?"
Chen chose her words carefully.
"Potentially."
Mark felt the room tilt.
His father had not simply died.
Someone may have caused his heart to fail.
Investigators searched Harold's medication records.
One person had picked up his prescriptions from the private pharmacy during his final month.
Samuel Price.
Security footage from the pharmacy had been automatically deleted after ninety days.
But transaction logs survived.
Samuel purchased Harold's regular medication.
During the same visit, another prescription was filled.
Digoxin.
The prescription belonged to Samuel's mother.
She had died six months earlier.
Samuel still had access to the medication.
Mark sat alone in the Bennett mansion that evening.
For years, he had replayed his last conversation with his father.
Harold called him at 7:14 on a Tuesday night.
He asked how Sophie was doing in school.
He complained about the weather.
Then he said something odd.
"If things get messy after I'm gone, don't let the money decide who you become."
Mark had laughed.
"Dad, you're not dying."
Harold had been silent.
Then he said.
"Everyone is."
Mark wished he had listened more carefully.
He wished he had driven to the mansion.
He wished he had asked why his father sounded afraid.
But regret could not change Tuesday night.
Daniel found Mark in Harold's study.
"You should go home."
"This was his home."
Daniel sat opposite him.
"Your father knew Samuel was dangerous."
"And he didn't tell me."
"He was trying to protect you."
"That worked well."
Daniel let the bitterness pass.
Mark looked at the desk.
"Did Dad know Samuel might kill him?"
"I don't know."
Mark touched the chair Sophie had used.
Then something occurred to him.
"Harold recorded the video nine days before he died."
Daniel nodded.
"What if he recorded something later?"
They searched the computer again.
Nothing.
Then Mark remembered the old security system.
Harold hated cloud storage.
He kept local backups.
A technician recovered an external drive from a locked server cabinet.
There were thousands of hours of security recordings.
The study camera normally recorded only when motion was detected.
They found footage from Harold's final evening at home.
10:08 PM.
Harold entered the study.
10:11 PM.
Samuel Price entered.
10:17 PM.
The camera abruptly stopped recording.
Mark stared at the timestamp.
10:17.
The same time frozen on the heirloom pocket watch.
Daniel slowly looked at him.
"Your father changed that watch."
Mark understood.
Harold had left a clue.
He had known.
The footage resumed at 10:41.
Samuel left alone.
Harold did not appear again.
At 6:12 the next morning, the housekeeper found Harold unconscious in bed.
He died at the hospital that afternoon.
Detective Chen watched the recovered footage.
Then her phone rang.
State police had located Samuel.
A traffic camera captured him driving south less than an hour earlier.
His direction made no sense until Mark saw the route.
May you like
Samuel was heading toward Sophie Bennett's school.
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