Chapter 3: Facing the Truth
Madam Helen swept out of the house without offering a single shred of context, leaving behind a silence so heavy it felt like the air had been sucked out of the room.
Conrad remained frozen by the door, staring down at the hardwood floor as if he were waiting for the ground to swallow him whole.
“What exactly did your mother mean by that?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
He didn’t answer for a long time, his jaw working as he tried to process the implications.
“Laura died from a sudden infection following a routine surgery,” he said, his eyes unfocused. “That is what I was always told.”
“And who gave you that information, Conrad?”
He closed his eyes tight, a vein throbbing in his temple. “My mother.”
We spent that entire night pouring over the remnants of Laura’s life, going through old digital files, bank receipts, and boxes of documents tucked away in a dusty corner of the main house.
Helen had micromanaged every single detail of the funeral and the estate, and according to the official version of events, Laura had checked into a private clinic for a minor procedure and then suffered an unavoidable, tragic complication.
But the more we dug, the more obvious the discrepancies became.
The surgeon listed on the chart was completely different from the one in the surgery notes, and the time of death didn’t match the hospital billing records at all.
Even worse, we uncovered monthly transfers from the Wheeler construction firm to a mysterious shell company that provided medical services and vanished into thin air just months after Laura’s death.
Conrad slumped into a worn armchair, his face pale. “I was away in the northern territory launching a new infrastructure project,” he murmured, his voice cracking. “My mother told me not to come back, that she would handle everything for me. By the time I arrived, Laura was already gone.”
I looked at him with a mix of white-hot anger and profound pity, realizing he had spent his entire adult life confusing blind obedience with loyalty.
His mother had effectively acted as his brain, his conscience, and his eraser, wiping away anyone or anything that threatened the family’s public image.
The next morning, we tracked down Laura’s former personal driver, a man named Ernesto who had moved to a quiet suburb on the edge of the city.
