CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 3 — THE VOICE OF A DEAD MAN
The security guard placed the device on the table.
A tiny green light blinked steadily.
David looked at Marcus.
“You said Charlie learned these sentences years ago.”
“Some of them, perhaps.”
“But someone is transmitting into this room now.”
Sophia stepped closer.
“Are you saying someone made the bird say those things?”
Charlie had been trained to repeat voices and phrases, but no one had imagined that he could be deliberately prompted.
The guard examined the device.
“It’s connected to a wireless receiver. Whoever controls it may be nearby.”
David ordered the mansion locked down.
Security began searching every room, vehicle, and service corridor.
Eleanor sat in a chair, holding one hand against her chest.
David noticed.
“You nearly collapsed when Charlie mentioned the Walker fortune.”
“I was shocked.”
“No. You recognized Thomas’s voice.”
Eleanor looked toward the windows.
“Thomas was dangerous.”
“He was dead before Noah was conceived.”
“That doesn’t mean his plans died with him.”
Marcus opened his briefcase.
Inside were documents David had never seen.
Thomas Reed had once controlled nearly half of Walker Holdings. After a financial dispute, David’s father bought him out. Thomas lost millions and blamed the Walker family for destroying him.
But one document was different.
It was a trust amendment.
Under its terms, control of a large block of Walker family shares would eventually transfer to David’s biological child.
David read it twice.
“My biological child?”
Marcus nodded.
“Your grandfather used very specific language.”
Sophia looked at him.
“If Noah was conceived with a donor, he might not legally qualify.”
David understood.
Someone could challenge Noah’s inheritance.
The accusation was not merely about infidelity.
It was about control of the family company.
“Who benefits if Noah is declared ineligible?” David asked.
Marcus turned to Eleanor.
She did not move.
David’s voice dropped.
“Mother?”
Eleanor finally looked at him.
“If you had no biological heir, the shares would pass to the next blood relative.”
David thought of his younger brother, Andrew.
Andrew had lived in Europe for years and rarely returned home.
“Andrew benefits?”
“Not exactly,” Marcus said.
“Then who?”
Before he could answer, the security guard returned.
“We found someone in the east guest wing.”
Two guards brought in a middle-aged woman wearing a catering uniform.
She was not part of the event staff.
David recognized her face from an old family photograph.
“Laura Reed.”
Thomas Reed’s widow smiled faintly.
“You remember me.”
“What are you doing in my house?”
She looked at the parrot.
“Making sure the truth was heard.”
“You planted the transmitter.”
“Yes.”
Sophia stepped toward her.
“You tried to destroy my marriage.”
Laura laughed.
“Your marriage was built on a lie long before I entered this house.”
David demanded to know what she meant.
Laura reached into her apron.
The guards moved quickly, but she only produced a sealed plastic bag.
Inside was a silver flash drive.
“The missing recordings,” she said.
Sophia’s face drained of color.
Marcus whispered, “That drive was destroyed.”
“No,” Laura replied. “It was stolen.”
“By whom?” David asked.
Laura looked directly at Eleanor.
“By the woman who caused your accident.”
Eleanor stood.
“That is absurd.”
Laura handed the drive to David.
“Watch the final recording. Then ask your mother why she followed you onto the bridge that night.”
David looked at Eleanor.
For the first time in his life, his mother appeared genuinely afraid of him.
But when he inserted the drive into the ballroom television, only one video file appeared.
The date was the night before his accident.
David appeared on the screen.
Beside him stood Sophia.
And in David’s arms was a newborn baby.
A baby born three years before Noah.
👇 Chapter 4
