Chapter 5 - THE BOY IN THE WAITING ROOM
David Collins yanked his left arm behind his back as if the watch had suddenly caught fire.
He slammed against the clinic wall, his eyes darting frantically toward the exits.
“The boy is lying!” David shouted, his voice cracking. “I bought this watch myself!”
Arthur Hale didn’t look at David. He looked at Noah.
Arthur took a slow, painful step toward the fourteen-year-old boy. He leaned heavily on his cane, his breathing shallow, but his eyes were entirely focused.
“Hello, Noah,” Arthur said gently. “My name is Arthur.”
Noah looked up at his mother, then at Megan. Megan gave him a reassuring nod.
“Hi,” Noah said quietly, clutching his sketchbook to his chest.
“Noah,” Arthur said, his voice soothing, like a grandfather asking about a school project. “You said you saw that man—” he gestured vaguely toward Julian “—give your father a box?”
Noah nodded. “It was raining. Dad went out to the porch. The man in the nice suit was there. He handed Dad a wooden box. Dad looked inside, and he looked really mad. He tried to give it back.”
“And what did the man in the suit say?” Arthur asked.
Noah swallowed hard. “He said, ‘Keep it, Tom. Consider it a bonus for looking the other way.’ But Dad threw it on the ground. He told the man to get off our property.”
Arthur closed his eyes for a brief second. A look of immense relief washed over his tired face.
Thomas Carter hadn’t taken a bribe. He had rejected it.
“The watch spilled out on the grass,” Noah continued. “After the man drove away, Dad picked it up. He brought it inside and put it on the kitchen counter. The next day, the police came. They searched the house. But the watch was gone.”
Megan looked at David Collins.
“You planted it,” Megan whispered.
She put the pieces together instantly. Julian tried to bribe her father to keep quiet about the stolen materials. When her father refused, Julian needed him gone. They needed a reason to fire him, and a way to discredit him if he ever went to the authorities.
“You planted the stolen watch in our house, tipped off the police, but then you took it back before they arrived,” Megan said, stepping toward David. “Because you couldn’t resist keeping it for yourself. Could you?”
David was sweating profusely. “It’s a vintage Rolex! It’s mine! I have the receipt—”
“Angela,” Arthur interrupted.
The attorney stepped forward.
“Have our security team pull the serial number off the watch reported stolen from the Terminal A site,” Arthur commanded. “Then have them physically remove that watch from Mr. Collins’s wrist and compare the numbers.”
David panicked.
He lunged toward the exit.
He didn’t make it two steps.
Two of Arthur’s corporate security men, who had been standing quietly outside the clinic doors, stepped inside. They grabbed David by the arms, pinning him effortlessly.
“Get off me!” David shrieked.
“Take it off him,” Arthur ordered.
One of the security men unclasped the gold watch from David’s wrist and handed it to Angela.
She turned it over, checking the tiny numbers engraved on the back casing against her tablet.
She looked up at Arthur.
“It’s a match, sir.”
David collapsed to his knees, sobbing into his hands. “Julian made me do it! He said if I didn’t help him frame Carter, he’d pin the missing two million on me!”
Julian Hale laughed.
It was a cold, arrogant sound that filled the room.
“Pathetic,” Julian sneered, shaking his head. He looked at his father. “Are you really going to take the word of a sobbing middle-manager and a fourteen-year-old kid with an overactive imagination?”
“I’ll take the word of the serial numbers,” Arthur said coldly.
“I bought that watch at an auction and gave it to David as a gift,” Julian lied smoothly. “If he used it to frame Thomas Carter, that’s on him. I had no idea.”
Julian walked toward his father, lowering his voice.
“You have nothing on me, Dad. Nothing. The offshore accounts? Traced to Carter. The theft? Traced to Carter. David here just admitted he framed the man. It’s a tragic story. But my hands are perfectly clean.”
Arthur swayed slightly.
He gripped his cane tighter, his knuckles turning white. His face, already pale, took on a grayish hue.
Megan noticed immediately.
“Mr. Hale, you need to sit down,” Megan said, rushing forward.
Arthur waved her off, but he stumbled.
Julian’s eyes lit up with predatory triumph.
“Look at him,” Julian announced to the room. “He’s exhausted. He’s confused. He’s unfit to make corporate decisions.”
Julian turned to Sterling and the consortium executives, who were watching the drama unfold in stunned silence.
“Gentlemen, as Vice Chairman, I am officially declaring my father medically incapacitated,” Julian declared. “I am halting the acquisition of your consortium pending a full medical review.”
Sterling looked nervous. “Julian, we have a signed letter of intent—”
“Which is void if the Chairman is not of sound mind,” Julian snapped. “And clearly, he isn’t. He’s taking business advice from a janitor.”
Julian turned to his father’s security team.
“Escort my father to the company jet. We are leaving.”
The security men didn’t move. They looked at Arthur.
“I said, escort him!” Julian yelled.
Arthur took a deep, rattling breath. He looked up at his son, his eyes filled with a profound, unshakeable sadness.
“You’re right about one thing, Julian,” Arthur whispered.
Julian smirked. “Oh? And what’s that?”
“My hands are not clean either.”
Arthur reached into the pocket of his frayed gray coat.
He didn’t pull out a phone. He didn’t pull out a document.
He pulled out a small, black audio recorder.
Old-fashioned. Tape-based.
Arthur pressed a button on the side.
A tinny, distorted voice filled the silent room.
It wasn’t Julian’s voice.
It was David Collins.
“...I can’t do this anymore, Julian. The auditors are digging into the Terminal A logs.”
Then, Julian’s voice, recorded perfectly clear.
“Let them dig. The money is offshore. Thomas Carter’s name is on the accounts. You just make sure his daughter stays quiet. Threaten the boy if you have to. Just keep the janitor in line until my father signs the consortium deal. Once we own their security apparatus, we wipe the server drives.”
Julian’s face went perfectly, horrifyingly blank.
He stared at the tape recorder in his father’s hand.
“Where… where did you get that?” Julian stammered.
Megan looked at David Collins on the floor.
David was staring at the recorder in absolute shock.
Arthur looked at David, then at Julian.
“You didn’t just bribe my foreman, Julian,” Arthur said quietly. “You bribed my son.”
Wait, Megan thought.
The reversal hit her like a physical blow.
Arthur hadn’t been recording Julian.
He had been recording David.
But David hadn’t known he was being recorded.
Arthur turned to the clinic doors.
“Thank you, Detective,” Arthur called out.
Two uniformed police officers stepped into the room.
May you like
Behind them stood the airport’s Chief of Police.
And in his hand was the other half of the wire.
