CHAPTER 9 — THE MISSING VOTE
Police searched the river for three days.
They found Martin’s briefcase, one shoe and his broken phone.
They did not find his body.
Thomas used the disappearance to attack Khloe publicly.
Anonymous reports claimed Martin had uncovered corruption inside Cole Urban Development before vanishing.
News stations replayed footage of Khloe entering the courthouse during Richard’s trial.
Commentators questioned whether she was qualified to control a major corporation.
Richard’s former allies appeared on television and described Khloe as vindictive.
The pattern was painfully familiar.
A woman survived violence.
Then powerful men called her unstable for refusing to remain silent about it.
Khloe addressed the employees directly.
She stood inside the main lobby without a prepared speech.
“Martin Ellis is missing,” she said. “His family deserves answers, not rumors. Until we know what happened, I will not allow anyone to use his disappearance as a weapon against this company or the people who depend on it.”
The employees remained quiet.
Then one woman began clapping.
Others joined her.
Within seconds, the entire lobby filled with applause.
Thomas watched from the second-floor balcony.
He was not smiling.
The emergency board vote occurred that afternoon.
Thomas needed nine votes to suspend Khloe.
He received eight.
Martin’s seat remained empty.
The motion failed.
Thomas closed his folder calmly.
“This is not over.”
“No,” Khloe said. “It isn’t.”
Federal agents searched Thomas’s offices but found nothing directly connecting him to Martin’s disappearance or Daniel’s death.
Harrison’s legal problems grew worse.
Investigators recovered an archived email appearing to show him authorizing the Meridian payment.
The address was his.
The signature was his.
The message had been sent from his office computer.
“I didn’t write it,” he insisted.
Khloe believed him.
The government did not.
Harrison was charged with falsifying financial documents and conspiracy to conceal trust assets.
He surrendered his passport and stepped away from his law firm.
Outside the courthouse, reporters surrounded him.
For years, Harrison had defended people whose lives were destroyed by public accusations.
Now he stood silently while cameras captured his own humiliation.
Khloe pushed through the crowd and took his hand.
“You don’t have to stand beside me,” he whispered.
“Yes, I do.”
“They’re going to use me against you.”
“Let them try.”
Emma reviewed the electronic evidence.
The email contained a small formatting error.
Harrison always used a period after his middle initial in legal correspondence.
The forged message did not.
“It proves someone copied your signature but did not understand your habits,” Emma said.
“It won’t be enough.”
“Then we find the original server records.”
Those records had been stored at Harrison’s former law firm.
The firm claimed the backup system had been destroyed in a flood.
Lena discovered the flood had never happened.
Someone had paid the managing partner to eliminate the archive.
Before agents could question him, the partner left the country.
That evening, Khloe received an email from Martin’s account.
The message contained only an address and a time.
An abandoned train depot.
Midnight.
Harrison wanted to contact the police.
The message warned that Martin would die if Khloe involved them.
“You are not going alone,” Harrison said.
“I’m not risking Martin’s life.”
“You have a daughter.”
“Martin has children too.”
At eleven forty-five, Khloe entered the depot wearing a concealed tracking device.
She found Martin tied to a chair beneath a single hanging light.
He was bruised but alive.
Khloe ran toward him.
“Martin.”
His head lifted.
“Don’t come closer.”
A red light appeared on his chest.
Khloe froze.
A laser sight moved from Martin to her.
From the darkness above them, a man began to laugh.
May you like
It was not Thomas Crane.
It was Richard Harrington.
