Chapter 3 - THE FRIEND WHO STOLE HER LAPTOP
Eric Dalton agreed to meet the police voluntarily.
He arrived with an attorney and claimed Bradley had called him on the night Katherine died.
According to Eric, Bradley said Katherine had fallen and asked him to retrieve a company laptop before emergency workers entered the house.
“Why would you remove evidence from the scene of a serious injury?” Detective Ruiz asked.
Eric looked toward his lawyer.
“I was told the laptop contained confidential client files.”
“You stayed inside the house for seven minutes.”
“I went to Katherine’s office, found the laptop and left.”
“Did you see Katherine?”
“No.”
“Did you see Heather Cole?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know she was having an affair with Bradley?”
Eric hesitated.
“I had heard rumors.”
“Did you know Bradley and Heather were stealing from the company?”
“No.”
Ruiz placed several financial records on the table.
One of the fake vendors had received payments authorized with Eric’s credentials.
His face lost color.
“I didn’t approve those.”
“Then someone accessed your account.”
“Bradley knew my password.”
“Why?”
“We worked together.”
Ruiz leaned forward.
“Bradley did not work for Katherine’s company.”
“He helped with operations.”
“Without an official position?”
Eric said nothing.
While he was questioned, investigators examined the laptop.
It had been wiped clean shortly after Katherine’s death.
However, the internal drive had been replaced.
Eric claimed he knew nothing about it.
His attorney ended the interview.
The police allowed him to leave because they did not yet have grounds to arrest him.
Raymond did not believe Eric was innocent.
Neither did I.
Katherine had trusted him longer than she had known Bradley.
If Eric had helped them, the betrayal would have been almost as painful as her husband’s.
But grief does strange things to memory.
I began remembering conversations I had ignored.
Six months earlier, Katherine told me Eric was pressuring her to sell the company.
She refused because the buyer planned to eliminate half the staff.
Three months later, she complained that Bradley and Eric had become unusually close.
“They act like they built the company,” she had said.
I laughed and told her men sometimes needed to feel important.
I hated myself for that response.
I had treated her unease as frustration rather than warning.
The day after Eric’s interview, Heather requested to speak with Detective Ruiz.
Her attorney accompanied her.
She offered information in exchange for immunity.
The prosecutor refused full immunity but agreed to consider cooperation when determining charges.
Heather began talking.
She admitted the affair had lasted eighteen months.
She admitted Bradley told her Katherine planned to divorce him and remove him from her will.
She admitted helping create fake vendor accounts, although she insisted Bradley controlled the transfers.
Then Ruiz asked what happened on August 14.
Heather’s story came apart slowly.
She said Katherine invited her to the house.
The audio proved otherwise.
She said Katherine attacked Bradley.
The bruises contradicted her.
She said Katherine fell without anyone touching her.
Tanya’s statement placed both adults beside her.
Finally, Heather began crying.
They were not graceful tears.
They streaked her makeup and left her voice raw.
“We didn’t mean for her to die.”
I listened from another room beside Raymond.
Ruiz asked, “Who touched Katherine before she fell?”
“Bradley grabbed her.”
“Did he push her?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were standing beside them.”
“Katherine pulled away. She stepped backward. Bradley still had her wrist.”
“Did he release her?”
Heather closed her eyes.
“No.”
“Did he pull her toward him?”
“I think so.”
“And what did you do?”
“I tried to take the phone.”
“From Katherine?”
“Yes.”
“So Bradley held one arm while you grabbed the phone from the other.”
Heather nodded.
“Katherine twisted away. Her heel slipped at the top of the stairs.”
Ruiz remained calm.
“What happened after she fell?”
“We went down.”
“Was she breathing?”
“Yes.”
“Was she conscious?”
“For a little while.”
My chest tightened.
Katherine had not died immediately.
“What did she say?” Ruiz asked.
Heather’s mouth trembled.
“She asked for Tanya.”
“Did you call emergency services?”
“Bradley said to wait.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to find the recordings.”
“How long did you wait?”
“I don’t know.”
“Phone records indicate twenty-eight minutes passed between the likely fall and the emergency call.”
Heather covered her face.
“He said she was breathing. He said we needed to protect ourselves first.”
The room blurred around me.
Twenty-eight minutes.
My daughter had lain injured while they searched for evidence.
Heather continued.
Bradley called Eric.
Eric arrived and took the laptop.
Then Bradley found the bracelet near the stairs and gave it to Heather.
“He said Katherine had hidden something inside it,” Heather whispered. “I checked the charms, but I didn’t find anything.”
“Why did you wear it to the funeral?”
Her answer came so quietly I almost did not hear it.
“I wanted everyone to know he chose me.”
Raymond looked at me.
I understood now.
“I won” had never been only about Bradley.
Heather believed she had defeated my daughter by replacing her in her marriage, her home and eventually her daughter’s life.
She had worn the bracelet as proof.
But she had never truly known Bradley.
The moment police pressure increased, he abandoned her.
According to Heather, Bradley blamed everything on her.
He called her obsessive.
He claimed she planned the thefts.
He told investigators she might have caused Katherine’s fall.
Heather had thought she was his future.
To Bradley, she was merely the next woman he could sacrifice.
Her testimony gave prosecutors enough to arrest both of them.
Bradley was charged with manslaughter, evidence tampering, financial fraud and delaying emergency aid.
Heather was charged with fraud, evidence tampering and criminal negligence.
Eric remained under investigation.
The arrest did not bring peace.
Bradley’s mother, Judith Granger, launched a public campaign against me.
She gave interviews describing Katherine as emotionally unstable and controlling.
She posted photographs of Bradley playing with Tanya at the park.
She accused me of exploiting tragedy to steal my granddaughter.
Within days, strangers began sending messages to Katherine’s company and to my personal account.
Some called me a bitter mother-in-law.
Others said fathers deserved custody regardless of mistakes.
A local gossip page posted a photograph of me leaving court with the headline:
GRIEVING GRANDMOTHER OR CALCULATING HEIRESS?
I wanted to hide.
Raymond told me not to respond publicly.
Detective Ruiz warned that any statement could affect the case.
So I stayed silent again.
Not because I was weak.
Because the truth was still gathering strength.
At home, Tanya began drawing staircases.
In every picture, there was a woman at the bottom surrounded by yellow flowers.
One afternoon she drew a fourth person near the back door.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“Uncle Eric.”
“He was there?”
She nodded.
“He came before Mommy fell.”
The security footage showed Eric arriving after the fall.
“Are you sure?”
Tanya frowned.
“He came when it was sunny. Then he came when it was dark.”
My pulse quickened.
Eric had visited twice.
Detectives searched earlier security files and found that his first visit had been manually deleted.
A neighboring home’s camera filled the gap.
At 6:17 p.m., more than four hours before Katherine’s fall, Eric entered through the side gate.
He stayed for nineteen minutes.
When police confronted him again, his attorney could no longer explain the discrepancy.
Eric finally admitted the truth.
Katherine had asked him to come.
She suspected Bradley was stealing from the company and wanted Eric to review the records.
Instead of helping her, Eric warned Bradley.
“Why?” Ruiz asked.
Eric stared at the table.
“Because Bradley promised me control of the company after Katherine was gone.”
My daughter’s trusted partner had sold her for a title.
He explained that an outside corporation called Meridian House Group had offered to buy Katherine’s business.
Katherine refused.
Bradley and Eric planned to force the sale by driving the company into debt.
The fake loans were not merely theft.
They were designed to weaken the company until a sale became inevitable.
“And if Katherine died?” Ruiz asked.
“Bradley inherited her shares.”
“Except she changed her will.”
“We didn’t know that.”
The conspiracy had begun as financial betrayal.
It ended in death because Katherine discovered it.
But Eric revealed one more detail.
Meridian House Group had secretly funded the fake vendors.
Bradley was not the most powerful person involved.
A senior executive named Victor Hale had supplied the shell companies, legal contacts and money.
Victor served on the board of a major Phoenix development firm.
He also happened to be Judith Granger’s brother.
Bradley’s family had not merely defended him after Katherine died.
They had helped build the trap before she was killed.
That evening, Raymond examined Katherine’s will again.
A paragraph near the end referred to a “sunflower archive” entrusted to a guardian whose identity would be revealed only if the company faced forced sale or criminal seizure.
“What is the sunflower archive?” I asked.
Raymond shook his head.
“Katherine never told me.”
Then Tanya entered the room carrying her mother’s stuffed sunflower pillow.
She placed it in my lap.
“Mommy said this was for you when the bad people came.”
The pillow felt unusually heavy.
Inside the zipper was a brass key and a note written in Katherine’s hand.
MOM, THIS KEY OPENS THE PLACE WHERE I SAVED WHAT THEY COULD NEVER BUY.
DO NOT TRUST ANYONE WHO ASKS YOU TO SELL THE COMPANY.
NOT EVEN ERIC.
Beneath the message was an address in downtown Phoenix.
The following morning, Raymond and I went there.
The address belonged to a private bank.
Inside a safe-deposit box, we found no money.
We found ownership certificates.
Weeks before her death, Katherine had quietly transferred fifty-one percent of her company into an employee trust.
Bradley could not inherit controlling shares.
Victor could not force the sale.
Eric could never become the owner.
My daughter had protected the people who helped her build the business.
But beneath the certificates was a second envelope.
On the front, Katherine had written one name.
JUDITH GRANGER.
May you like
And inside was proof that Bradley’s mother had known exactly what her son was planning.
---
