Chapter 7 - SABRINA’S NEW YEAR’S FUNERAL
Sabrina asked to speak with me on January 4.
Her attorney objected.
She insisted.
Naomi arranged the meeting with everyone properly represented and recorded.
I sat across from Sabrina in a small interview room.
She looked different without the black dress, makeup, expensive earrings, and carefully styled hair.
Not smaller.
More ordinary.
That was somehow worse.
People often imagine villains look like villains.
Usually they look like neighbors.
Coworkers.
Family.
She folded her hands.
“How is Wyatt?”
“You lost the right to ask.”
Her eyes lowered.
“I know you hate me.”
“Hate is expensive.”
She looked up.
“I don’t understand.”
“It costs attention.”
I leaned back.
“I’m saving mine for my son.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Thomas planned everything.”
I said nothing.
“He came to us.”
“When?”
“Last summer.”
“Why Irving?”
“My father knew Martin Krell.”
“From?”
“Business.”
“What business?”
She hesitated.
“Loans.”
Illegal lending.
Of course.
“Thomas said Wyatt was going to inherit Heartland.”
“He lied.”
“We know that now.”
“What did he promise you?”
“Twenty-five million.”
“For murdering my son?”
Her eyes filled.
“I wasn’t supposed to—”
“Choose your next sentence carefully.”
She stopped.
Then tried again.
“The original plan wasn’t supposed to involve hurting him.”
“What was the original plan?”
“Make him appear unstable.”
“How?”
“Medication.”
“Drugging him.”
“Small doses.”
“There is no moral version of poisoning somebody.”
She looked away.
“Then Wyatt found the invoices.”
“So you escalated.”
“My father did.”
“You chained him.”
“He tried to leave.”
“You helped hold a man prisoner in his own basement.”
“I was scared.”
“So was Wyatt.”
Silence.
I leaned forward.
“Why the party?”
Her face crumpled slightly.
“Thomas’s idea.”
I frowned.
“He wanted fifteen witnesses who could say you and Wyatt had been arguing.”
“About what?”
“Addiction.”
“He wanted everyone to believe Wyatt used drugs.”
“Yes.”
“And after midnight?”
She started crying.
“The plan was to put him upstairs.”
“Dead?”
She nodded.
“Where?”
“Our bedroom.”
“And you would discover him?”
“At eight in the morning.”
“You’d call 911.”
“Yes.”
“Cry?”
She looked at me with shame.
“Yes.”
“Then become the grieving widow.”
“Yes.”
I understood the title that formed in my mind.
Sabrina had planned her own New Year’s funeral.
Not her physical death.
The burial of every lie she had built her life around.
“What changed?”
“Wyatt wouldn’t sign.”
“So Irving shattered his knee.”
She flinched.
“I didn’t know Dad would go that far.”
“You pressed your shoe into the injury.”
She looked down.
“I lost control.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“You demonstrated control.”
That made her cry harder.
I didn’t feel victorious.
There is nothing satisfying about watching the woman your son once loved admit she helped plan his death.
“What do you want from me?”
She wiped her face.
“Protection.”
“From whom?”
“Thomas.”
“He’s in jail.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“What do you mean?”
“He planned for that.”
I stared.
“He said if anyone got arrested, someone else would finish it.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then you’re useless to me.”
“I know where Krell is.”
That mattered.
“Where?”
“He has a cabin near Table Rock Lake.”
“Address?”
She gave it.
Naomi immediately sent the information outside.
“What else?”
Sabrina swallowed.
“The sixty million.”
“What about it?”
“It doesn’t go to Northstar.”
“Raymond said—”
“Raymond doesn’t know.”
“Where does it go?”
“Six accounts.”
“Whose?”
“I only know one.”
She whispered the name.
Margaret Yates Foundation.
For several seconds, I could not breathe.
That foundation was named after my wife.
It funded scholarships for children of truck drivers.
Thomas had helped me establish it after Margaret died.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I was.”
“Why would money go there?”
“To make it look like you stole it.”
I finally understood Thomas’s full design.
The forged loans.
The fake asset transfer.
The Graymont acquisition.
The foundation.
He wasn’t simply taking Heartland.
He intended to frame me as the architect of the entire fraud.
By the time prosecutors untangled everything, my reputation would be destroyed.
Thomas would present himself as the betrayed partner who discovered my crimes.
The founder becomes the villain.
The thief becomes the savior.
It was brilliant.
And deeply personal.
Sabrina continued.
“He hated you.”
“I know.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“You don’t.”
“What did he say?”
“That you stole Margaret from him.”
Everything inside me became still.
“What?”
Sabrina looked confused.
“You didn’t know?”
No.
I didn’t.
Thomas met Margaret six months before I did.
They worked at the same freight brokerage.
He introduced us.
He was best man at our wedding.
I had never known.
“He said Heartland wasn’t the first thing you took.”
I stood.
Naomi said, “Abraham.”
“I’m fine.”
I wasn’t.
But I sat again.
“What else did he say?”
“He said he spent his whole life standing beside a man who got everything he wanted.”
“That’s not true.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s true.”
She was right.
Resentment rarely needs facts.
Only repetition.
Naomi received a message.
“Krell’s cabin is empty.”
Sabrina looked shocked.
“He should be there.”
“Recently used?”
“They’re checking.”
Ten minutes later, officers found blood in the cabin.
No body.
A burned passport.
Two phones.
And a message written on the wall in black marker.
NO MORE PARTNERS.
Thomas was eliminating people.
But Thomas had been in custody for nearly two days.
Which meant someone else was working for him.
The mysterious contingency.
Calvin arrived with another discovery.
“Abraham, you need to see this.”
He showed me footage from the Chestnut Hill party.
One guest stood near the kitchen for most of the evening.
Male.
Forties.
Quiet.
Blue suit.
He never appeared in group photographs.
Never drank.
Never removed his coat.
At 12:08, just before the ambulance arrived, he left through the rear patio.
“What’s his name?”
“Guest list says Aaron Blake.”
“Who invited him?”
“Sabrina says she didn’t.”
“Irving?”
“Claims he didn’t.”
“Facial recognition?”
“No match under that name.”
Then Wyatt called.
His voice was urgent.
“Dad.”
“What?”
“Show me the party footage.”
“Why?”
“Evan remembered something.”
We opened a video call.
Evan sat beside Wyatt.
He pointed at the man in the blue suit.
“That’s him.”
“Who?”
“The man who inspected our trailers.”
“When?”
“September.”
“Name?”
“He called himself Blake.”
“What was he inspecting?”
“Security seals.”
Calvin zoomed the footage.
Evan continued.
“He never signed the visitor log.”
“Why does he matter?”
Evan looked at me.
“Because he was there the night the first pharmaceutical shipment arrived.”
Calvin ran the image through additional databases.
Twenty minutes later, a match appeared.
Not Aaron Blake.
Nathan Reed.
Thomas’s younger brother.
Age fifty-six.
Former military logistics officer.
No known connection to Heartland.
I remembered Nathan.
Hadn’t seen him in twenty-five years.
He and Thomas stopped speaking after their father’s funeral.
At least that was what Thomas told me.
Another lie.
Nathan was the contingency.
The man outside the company.
The one who could finish everything if Thomas fell.
We searched his property.
Empty.
Bank accounts.
Recently drained.
Phone.
Off.
Then Calvin found one purchase from that morning.
A train ticket.
Springfield to Chicago.
Departure 6:20 p.m.
It was 5:48.
State officers raced to the station.
They found Nathan’s coat on a bench.
No Nathan.
Inside the pocket was his phone.
A deliberate decoy.
But the phone contained one unsent message.
Four words.
Phase Two starts tonight.
At 6:03 p.m., every electronic gate at Heartland’s largest distribution yard opened simultaneously.
At 6:04, twenty-eight trailers disappeared from the tracking system.
At 6:05, the building alarms shut down.
At 6:06, I received a call from Denise.
“Abraham, somebody has taken control of our network.”
“How much?”
“Everything.”
“Can we disconnect?”
“We’re trying.”
Then she said the sentence I had feared.
“They’ve locked us out.”
May you like
Nathan Reed wasn’t running away.
He was attacking Heartland.
