Chapter 39
39
“ F orty-eight years ago, Arthur Caine, a senior at UNC Chapel Hill, was dating this woman,” Lina started. Using the device he’d given her, she projected an image from her phone onto the white wall at the end of the table. In it, a young Arthur stood in a lab, his goggles pushed up, his hair askew, smiling with his arm around a tall, thin woman.
“Dad looks so young,” Andrea commented under her breath.
“Who is the woman?” Christopher asked. Viper heard no judgment or concern in the man’s voice, just curiosity. A fitting emotion, as the picture was taken several years before Arthur had met their mother.
“Bridgette Alder,” Lina replied. “Craig’s mother.”
All eyes traveled to Sonnenberg. He looked skyward. “You already knew they went to school together. They dated, too, but it was eons ago and not for long.”
“And not seriously either,” Lina said. “At the end of their senior year, she got pregnant. Not by your father,” she added with a pointed look at the Caine children.
Craig’s eyes narrowed. “My mother was no saint, but she was a good person.”
Lina inclined her head. “I agree. But her family was a different story, weren’t they?”
All eyes landed on Craig. He drummed his fingers on the table. “My mother’s family disowned her when they found out. When I was six months old, she married my stepdad and went on to have a good career. It’s not as tragic as it sounds.”
“You’re right, it’s not,” Lina agreed. “That’s not the entire story, is it, though?” On the white wall, a picture of two birth certificates came into focus.
Jackson kept his eyes on the other side of the table as the five turned their attention back to the images.
“I’d like you to note that Craig’s birth certificate indicates he was a multiple birth,” Lina said. “The other is that of the second baby.” That one listed only the baby’s gender and basic stats. The name was blank. “Bridgette put baby two, his twin sister, up for adoption. As a young single parent, managing one child would be difficult. Two would be next to impossible. Especially with no family support.”
“What does this have to do with anything?” Craig demanded.
“It establishes the fact that you have a sister. Her name is Holly Russell, and she’s married to a man named Jack Williams,” Lina said.
“Which has fuck-all to do with Navios,” he bit out.
Lina’s eyes glinted with a hardened sort of mischief—she was going to enjoy bringing Craig Sonnenberg down.
“Now, that’s not true, but we’ll get back to Holly and Jack in a little bit. For the moment, let’s return to Arthur Caine’s death,” she said. “By your own admission, Arthur Caine cared for his people, so when Annibel Rutgers, a former employee working on Project 62, died of the rare blood disorder disseminated intravascular coagulation while giving birth, Arthur took note. A year later, when Payton Slaughter died of an aneurysm while on vacation with her family at the age of twenty-eight, he grew suspicious.”
“Are you saying that something in the lab caused it? Something related to Project 62?” Jennifer asked, horrified.
“Your father suspected that to be the case,” Lina continued. “He shut the project down almost immediately after Payton’s death and began investigating himself.”
“How on earth would you know that?” Christopher asked.
“Friends in the right places,” she repeated, fixing the siblings with a look communicating she’d tell them more later. After a beat, Christopher nodded.
“Based on what we’ve learned about Arthur Caine,” she continued, “we believe he wanted to take care of his people. That the potential of a Navios project causing at least a few people to get sick made him want to ensure the others were okay.” She looked to Craig. “But doing that would expose the company to liability—significant liability. And you couldn’t have that.”
“So you killed him,” Christopher said, his voice little more than a whisper.
Craig remained silent, but his eyes bored into Lina. The man wasn’t stupid enough to come after her, but he sure as hell looked as if he’d like to.
“He did,” Lina agreed. “As I already described. We revisited all the footage from the club that night they shared a drink together. Both the feeds inside the bar and in the parking lot. Thankfully, they keep it for five years.”
The three siblings looked at the CEO in horror. Lina remained silent, letting the tension build.
Finally, Andrea blinked several times, as if to clear her head, and turned to Lina. “How does that tie into your father’s murder?”
“Joyce King, a former researcher in Project 62, died three years ago, and my father was part of the clinical trial they put her in when DIC complicated the sepsis she contracted while being treated for pneumonia. He learned her work history through that, and when he met Annibel Rutgers’s widower at a conference a year later, and learned she died of complications arising from the same disorder, his interest was piqued. My father was always fascinated by rare things—in science—and he spent a fair bit of time talking to Mr. Rutgers about his wife’s death. Where he learned that she, too, had worked for Navios.” She paused, as if picturing her dad having that conversation, then shook her head and continued. “Several months after learning about Annibel, Joyce’s widower told him about a third death. My father excelled at finding patterns—it’s one of the things that made him so good at what he did. He made the connection to Navios and, with the help of Joyce’s husband, began looking into other employees who had worked in the same lab. In total, he found six people associated with Project 62 that have subsequently died from complications associated with DIC.”
“And when your dad started investigating it, when he came here to talk to Chris, it put him on Craig’s radar,” Andrea said quietly.
Lina inclined her head. “If it comes to light before the sale, there’s a real possibility it won’t go through. It’s a huge liability—both financial and reputational—to have on the record, and the buyer might not be interested in taking it on.”
Slowly, Christopher and Jennifer nodded.
“Once again, I will point out that you’ve shown us no proof of any of this,” Craig said.
Lina flashed him a look, and Viper knew the shit was about to hit the fan—in a good way. “How’s this?” she asked. Hitting a button on her phone, two images filled the wall.
“Who are they?” Jennifer asked.
“Craig’s sister, Holly Russell, and her husband, Jack Williams,” Lina replied. “Both have been arrested and are in FBI custody now.”
Craig went a shade whiter, and the Caine siblings all tilted their heads in a similar motion.
“You said that Craig paid someone to kill your father. Was it his sister and her husband?” Christopher asked.
Lina nodded, projecting another image. This time, the one taken from the footage from Dr. Kato’s neighbor’s doorbell camera. In it, Holly Russell walked down the street in front of Dr. Kato’s house. Her tiny dog sniffing its way along the sidewalk.
“So she was nearby when he died,” Craig said. “That still doesn’t prove anything.”
“Interesting that you recognized this picture was taken in Dr. Kato’s neighborhood, Mr. Sonnenberg,” Callie commented. Viper bit his cheek to keep from laughing at the sour look on the man’s face.
“They found dog hair on my father,” Lina said, watching Craig. “And saliva. They also found a human hair—they confused it with the dog hair at first, but when they started the DNA analysis, they realized one of the strands was human. I’m sure it won’t surprise you to hear that the DNA of that hair matched Holly’s.”
“If you just arrested Holly, there’s no way you have DNA evidence already,” Craig pointed out.
“I guess she forgot to tell you when you hired her to kill my dad that she did time for aggravated assault. Her DNA is on record already,” Lina said.
“We also found a series of interesting payments made into Holly’s account that we recently traced to an offshore account in your name,” Callie said. “Well, in the name of a shell company you own. They don’t amount to much, but I’m guessing she’s going to tell us that you promised her part of the cash you’ll get from the sale of Navios.”
“She’s not going to tell you anything,” Craig insisted. “And even if she does, it’s her word against mine, and a jury would never believe her over me.”
Lina smiled. “It’s sweet how you expect such loyalty from your sister. Now, tell me, how does it feel knowing that not only will you never see a cent of money from the sale of Navios—if it even still goes through—but that you’ll also be spending the rest of your life in jail?”