Chapter 2 - The Blueprint of a Frame-Job
I walked over to the corkboard, my breath catching in my throat. At the center of the web was a corporate audit dated just two months after I was sent away.
Beneath it lay a handwritten note from my father: Carter’s gambling debts paid off via Dennis Logistics shell accounts. The exact amount matches the two million Finnley allegedly stole. Reagan forged the digital signatures.
"They didn't just steal the company," I muttered to myself, my fingers tracing the timeline. "They used me as the scapegoat to clear Carter's slate."
I opened the first plastic crate. Inside were dozens of medical files. I flipped through the pages, my eyes landing on a diagnostic report from St. Jude’s Private Care Facility—a high-security, luxury sanitarium located three hours north in the remote hills of Blackwood.
According to the documents, Camden Dennis had not died of cancer. He had been diagnosed with early-onset vascular dementia—a diagnosis signed by a doctor whose name appeared on Carter’s personal payroll ledger.
A final letter sat atop the medical files, addressed directly to me:
May you like
Finnley, if you are reading this, they have succeeded in isolating me. Reagan is using a fraudulent power of attorney to pump me full of sedatives at St. Jude’s. They need me alive just long enough to finalize the transfer of the primary stock options on my 60th birthday—July 15th. If they sign those papers, Dennis Logistics is gone, and the truth dies with me. Save me, son.
I looked at the digital watch on my wrist. Today was July 13th. I had exactly forty-eight hours before Reagan and Carter legally erased my father forever.
