Chapter 7 - The Trap is Set
The rain beat a steady, rhythmic tattoo against the leaded glass windows of my mother’s historic home on Elmwood Avenue. Inside, the house was warm, smelling faintly of vanilla and baby powder, but the atmosphere in the study was charged with tactical precision.
Arthur Pendelton, senior vice president of Baldwin Logistics, sat across from me at my mother’s heavy cherrywood desk. Between us lay the decrypted encrypted message logs Samantha Vance had couriered over an hour earlier.
"Marcus Thorne," Arthur muttered, shaking his white-haired head in disbelief, his weathered face etched with deep lines of anger. "I haven't heard that parasite's name in nearly thirty years. When Margaret bought out his shares after the embezzlement audit in '97, he swore he would find a way to take everything she built."
"And he almost did," I said quietly, looking down at the printouts of encrypted chats between Marcus and Charles. "He used Charles's vanity and financial recklessness as a crowbar to pry open the estate."
"What are your instructions, Madam CEO?" Arthur asked, leaning forward, his eyes burning with the same fierce loyalty he had given my mother for decades.
"Marcus thinks Charles is still running the play from inside the police precinct," I replied, a cold, calculated smile forming on my lips. "He thinks the forged trust documents are our only defense, and he doesn't realize that Samantha and the federal prosecutor have already locked down the primary corporate accounts."
"So, what is our counter-offensive?"
"We feed him a ghost," I said firmly. "We let Marcus believe that Charles successfully transferred a secondary stash of unrecorded bearer bonds and real estate holdings into a secret offshore account managed by Courtney’s father in Buffalo. When Marcus comes out of hiding to claim those assets, federal marshals and state investigators will be waiting to catch him red-handed."
Arthur let out a low, appreciative whistle. "A sting operation. Just like Margaret would have handled it."
"Exactly," I nodded, sliding a prepared memorandum across the desk. "I want our internal compliance team to flag a dummy wire transfer of five hundred thousand dollars from an unlisted estate account this Friday at midnight. We route it through a shell bank in Buffalo—the exact routing number Marcus suggested in his encrypted messages to Charles."
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"And the trap will spring the moment he initiates the digital handshake to claim the transfer," Arthur finished, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction. "Brilliant. I'll coordinate directly with ADA Marcus Vance and the federal cybercrime division tonight."
"Make sure everything is airtight," I instructed softly, standing up and walking to the window to look out into the rainy night. "Marcus Thorne thinks he can destroy what my mother built and what I am protecting. He is about to learn that the Baldwin family empire isn't just concrete and trucks—it's an iron trap."
