Chapter 4 - THE SECOND PLAN
Dr. Paul Reddick asked for a deal before sunrise.
Cowards sometimes become useful witnesses.
His attorney negotiated.
No immunity for attempted murder.
Possible consideration for full cooperation.
Reddick agreed.
Detective Ward recorded everything.
Roman was not allowed in the room.
He watched later.
Reddick looked gray.
“I never meant to kill him personally.”
Ward did not react.
“You altered his medication.”
“I changed dosage.”
“You combined it with a sedative.”
“Yes.”
“You knew that could stop his heart.”
Reddick swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Then explain ‘not personally.’”
Reddick looked down.
“Marcus designed it.”
There it was.
Distance as morality.
He described the plan.
Roman would take altered pills Sunday morning.
At dinner, wine and food would intensify effects.
He would feel dizzy.
Possibly collapse.
Reddick, conveniently nearby, would be called.
He would recommend transport to St. Catherine’s private cardiac unit.
Reddick had admitting privileges.
Once there, a second drug would be administered under the appearance of emergency treatment.
Death certificate:
Acute arrhythmia complicated by congenital cardiac disease.
Natural enough.
Fast cremation was never intended because the family mausoleum required burial.
But closed casket and rapid service would reduce questions.
Marcus wanted funeral before extended toxicology.
Katherine organized emotional narrative.
Roman had been tired.
Stressed.
Working too much.
History of heart trouble.
Clara’s “Daddy sleeps forever” comments later could be dismissed as grief.
Every story had been prepared.
Ward asked:
“Who else knew?”
Reddick said:
“Marcus. Katherine. Vincent Hale.”
“Anyone at the hospital?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Name:
Dr. Elise Moran.
Cardiology director.
Roman knew her.
She had treated Sofia during one hospitalization.
Professional.
Kind.
Apparently corrupt.
Reddick said Moran agreed to alter hospital records.
Payment:
One million dollars.
Police arrested her at home.
She denied everything.
Then investigators found a draft death certificate on her laptop.
Roman D’Angelo.
Cause:
Sudden cardiac arrest.
Date blank.
She stopped denying.
Another plea negotiation.
Roman felt sick.
Four adults prepared his death across home, company, law, and hospital.
How long?
Reddick said seven months.
Seven months.
Clara had turned three during that time.
Roman remembered Katherine giving her a black velvet dress as a “future special occasion” gift.
He had thought it strange.
Now he understood.
They had been rehearsing mourning in pieces.
Then Ward asked Reddick:
“What triggered the timeline?”
Reddick answered:
“Roman discovered Port Meridian.”
Roman frowned when he watched.
Port Meridian.
A subsidiary shipping terminal project in South Carolina.
Expensive.
Delayed.
He knew it.
“What did I discover?”
Investigators dug.
Roman had ordered an internal audit six weeks earlier because costs at Port Meridian exceeded budget by thirty percent.
The audit was still underway.
Marcus wanted him dead before results.
Why?
Port Meridian concealed theft.
Not millions.
Hundreds of millions.
Shell construction firms.
Equipment leases.
Land purchases.
Money moved through Vincent Hale’s entities.
Marcus approved contracts under delegated authority.
Katherine owned one shell company through a trust.
Reddick had received smaller payments.
The murder was not only about future control.
It protected past crimes.
Roman felt ashamed.
How had he missed it?
Elena answered before he asked aloud.
“You were CEO of a company with twelve thousand employees.”
“That’s an excuse.”
“No. It’s scale.”
“I trusted Marcus.”
“That was the mistake.”
Yes.
Not incompetence.
Trust.
Still his responsibility to fix.
Federal investigators entered.
Securities fraud.
Wire fraud.
Conspiracy.
The case became enormous.
News channels camped outside the estate.
Roman protected Clara from screens.
She watched cartoons.
Asked why people stood at the gate.
“Daddy’s work problem.”
Truth at age three.
Enough.
Then Katherine requested to speak with Roman.
He refused.
She sent a letter.
He refused to read.
Elena read the first line and stopped.
“She says Marcus manipulated her.”
Roman laughed.
“Of course.”
Then Elena’s face changed.
“What?”
“She says Sofia knew about Port Meridian.”
Roman froze.
Clara’s mother.
Dead two years.
“What?”
Katherine claimed Sofia discovered suspicious payments before her cancer worsened.
She told Katherine.
Asked her to protect Clara if something happened.
Roman felt cold.
Could Sofia’s illness be connected?
No.
He hated that his mind went there.
Cancer was real.
Documented.
Genetic markers.
No conspiracy.
But Katherine might be using Sofia’s memory.
Or revealing something.
Roman agreed to read only with Ward present.
Katherine wrote:
Sofia found Marcus’s invoices. She told me she was afraid to tell Roman because he would confront the family before she had proof.
Same pattern.
Proof before truth.
Sofia allegedly kept records.
Where?
A jewelry box Clara inherited.
Roman knew it.
Locked in a bank vault after Sofia died.
He had not opened it because it felt private.
Police obtained access with Roman.
Inside:
Jewelry.
Letters.
A USB drive.
Label:
PORT M.
Roman nearly dropped it.
Sofia had evidence.
Emails.
Invoices.
Photographs.
One audio memo.
Sofia’s voice.
“I think Marcus is stealing from Roman.”
Roman closed his eyes.
Hearing her again almost ended him.
Sofia continued.
“Katherine says she will help me.”
Roman looked at Elena.
Katherine.
Sofia trusted her.
Audio continued.
“I don’t know if Katherine understands how serious this is.”
Then later recording.
“Katherine asked me what happens to Clara’s shares if Roman dies.”
Roman’s blood went cold.
“She said it was hypothetical.”
Another.
“I told her never to speak about Roman’s death around Clara.”
Roman stopped.
So Katherine had been thinking about it two years ago.
Before Sofia died.
Maybe not murder then.
But inheritance.
Control.
Then final audio.
Date one week before Sofia’s last hospitalization.
“If something happens to me, I want Roman to know Katherine has changed.”
Roman stared.
Sofia’s voice weakened.
“She keeps asking about guardianship. She says Clara needs a woman if I die. I thought she meant love. Now I think she means control.”
The recording ended.
Roman felt grief become anger.
Katherine used Sofia’s trust.
Then after Sofia died, she positioned herself closer to Clara.
Birthday help.
Sleepovers.
Family dinners.
Not love?
Maybe some love.
But motive too.
Then the USB contained one final photograph.
Marcus, Katherine, and Vincent Hale meeting in a Port Meridian office eighteen months earlier.
On the whiteboard behind them:
SUCCESSION OPTIONS.
Roman enlarged it.
Three bullet points.
Medical.
Trust.
Board.
His death had not been invented seven months ago.
The architecture started while Sofia was dying.
And she had almost exposed it.
Hospital security logs later showed Dr. Moran had reserved a private cardiac suite for the night of the dinner under a coded patient placeholder. The reservation was canceled after police arrived at the estate. That digital trace supported Reddick’s account that the medical system had been prepared in advance.
Hospital security logs later showed Dr. Moran had reserved a private cardiac suite for the night of the dinner under a coded patient placeholder. The reservation was canceled after police arrived at the estate. That digital trace supported Reddick’s account that the medical system had been prepared in advance.
Hospital security logs later showed Dr. Moran had reserved a private cardiac suite for the night of the dinner under a coded patient placeholder. The reservation was canceled after police arrived at the estate. That digital trace supported Reddick’s account that the medical system had been prepared in advance.
Hospital security logs later showed Dr. Moran had reserved a private cardiac suite for the night of the dinner under a coded patient placeholder. The reservation was canceled after police arrived at the estate. That digital trace supported Reddick’s account that the medical system had been prepared in advance.
Hospital security logs later showed Dr. Moran had reserved a private cardiac suite for the night of the dinner under a coded patient placeholder. The reservation was canceled after police arrived at the estate. That digital trace supported Reddick’s account that the medical system had been prepared in advance.
Hospital security logs later showed Dr. Moran had reserved a private cardiac suite for the night of the dinner under a coded patient placeholder. The reservation was canceled after police arrived at the estate. That digital trace supported Reddick’s account that the medical system had been prepared in advance.
Hospital security logs later showed Dr. Moran had reserved a private cardiac suite for the night of the dinner under a coded patient placeholder. The reservation was canceled after police arrived at the estate. That digital trace supported Reddick’s account that the medical system had been prepared in advance.
Hospital security logs later showed Dr. Moran had reserved a private cardiac suite for the night of the dinner under a coded patient placeholder. The reservation was canceled after police arrived at the estate. That digital trace supported Reddick’s account that the medical system had been prepared in advance.
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Hospital security logs later showed Dr. Moran had reserved a private cardiac suite for the night of the dinner under a coded patient placeholder. The reservation was canceled after police arrived at the estate. That digital trace supported Reddick’s account that the medical system had been prepared in advance.
Hospital security logs later showed Dr. Moran had reserved a private cardiac suite for the night of the dinner under a coded patient placeholder. The reservation was canceled after police arrived at the estate. That digital trace supported Reddick’s account that the medical system had been prepared in advance.
