Chapter 7
Bellwether Harbor collapsed under scrutiny.
The buyer withdrew, claiming reputational risk.
Clarice called it financial sabotage.
Agnes called it sunlight.
Then the forensic accountant found the deeper issue.
The warehouse sale had not merely been a chance for Clarice to earn a fee.
It would also have destroyed leverage.
Inside one warehouse office were archived paper records that had never been digitized.
Old shipping manifests.
Cash ledgers.
Security logs.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
Some implicated Vincent.
Some implicated Michael, Clarice’s late husband.
Some implicated Dominic’s current lieutenants.
But several also implicated Clarice.
Not as a mafia boss.
As the person who helped turn dirty cash into respectable charity sponsorships and consulting payments after Michael died.
She had not been merely glamorous window dressing.
She understood the money.
She refined it.
She made it socially acceptable.
Agnes found those records.
Then Clarice learned Agnes had them.
That changed the motive for the staircase.
Clarice did not only want Agnes’s vote.
She needed Agnes discredited before Agnes could authenticate the records.
If Agnes was declared confused, angry, or manipulated by outsiders, her cooperation with prosecutors could be attacked.
Clarice’s threat made more sense now.
“Your mother’s secret dies with me.”
She believed Dominic did not know Agnes had copied and hidden the warehouse records.
She also believed Agnes’s cooperation depended on Clarice’s ability to explain the records.
That was arrogance.
The records spoke well enough on their own.
Then Agnes disclosed the most painful part.
She had not found the archive recently.
She had known about parts of it for years.
Dominic asked:
“How many years?”
Agnes whispered:
“Since Michael died.”
Clarice’s husband.
Dominic’s brother.
Michael had died in a boating accident twelve years earlier.
At least, that was the official story.
Dominic’s face hardened.
“Mother.”
May you like
Agnes looked terrified again.
The staircase secret was about to reach back further than money.
