Chapter 3 - The Email from Myself
The email contained one sentence.
If Richard takes you to Avalon, do not enter with only one key.
No signature.
No attachment.
Naomi immediately asked the hospital to disconnect my personal devices from WiFi.
Adrian contacted Hayes cybersecurity.
I did not touch the message again.
“Who can schedule mail from your account?”
Naomi asked.
“Me.”
“Anyone else?”
“My executive assistant had limited calendar access.”
“Email?”
“No.”
“Richard?”
“No.”
That word had become dangerous.
No.
Every time I believed something impossible, the story grew another door.
Hayes cybersecurity found no recent compromise.
The scheduled email had been created from an authorized device.
My old encrypted tablet.
Retired four years earlier.
Stored where?
My father’s Monterey house.
After he died, I kept his private office locked.
Richard managed the property.
Of course he did.
Adrian dispatched corporate security with law enforcement consent.
The office door showed no forced entry.
My old tablet was missing.
A charger remained.
Dust outline.
Someone had taken it recently.
When?
Housekeeping photographs showed it on the shelf five months earlier.
Gone three months later.
The email was scheduled four months ago.
That fit.
But why would Richard send me a warning against himself?
He would not.
Unless the sender was someone else with access to the house.
Who?
My younger cousin Nathan.
My father’s longtime house manager, Greta Lewis.
Richard.
Myself.
Naomi asked:
“Could your father have scheduled it before he died?”
“Not from that tablet.”
The device did not exist then.
Another dead end.
Then Adrian called.
“Richard is asking for immunity.”
I laughed once.
“From what?”
“He has not said.”
“Immunity before charges?”
“His attorney requested a meeting with federal investigators.”
“What is he offering?”
“Avalon.”
My heart slowed.
“What about Avalon?”
“He says there is an active system.”
“That is impossible.”
“Apparently he disagrees.”
The company shutdown had been public internally.
Facilities sealed.
Source code archived.
Hardware destroyed or transferred.
An active Avalon system would mean someone continued the project after my father ordered it closed.
Why would Richard know?
I remembered his questions about my trusts.
His fixation on incapacity.
His anxiety when I changed estate lawyers.
Maybe money was only part of it.
Maybe control of Hayes Advanced Systems gave him access to something else.
Naomi leaned against the window.
“What exactly changes if you die before the baby is born?”
“Corporate control moves temporarily to the Whitmore Hayes Continuity Trust.”
“Trustee?”
“Three people.”
“Names?”
“Naomi Grant.”
She smiled slightly.
“Helpful.”
“Adrian Cole.”
He nodded.
“And Richard.”
The room became silent.
I had forgotten.
Not literally.
I had not focused on it because the trust required unanimous action for extraordinary matters.
Richard could not control anything alone.
After the baby was born, Richard’s position changed.
Under my recent estate amendment, he would no longer serve as continuity trustee.
Why?
Because I had discovered the fake estate restatement.
I did not tell him.
I signed the new amendment privately.
Effective:
At birth of my first child.
Until then, Richard still held one of three continuity trustee seats if I died.
If I became incapacitated, different rules applied.
My existing board retained authority.
Richard received nothing additional.
So killing me before birth gave him a seat.
Not control.
Unless one of the other trustees disappeared or consented.
Adrian looked at me.
“I would never.”
“I know.”
Naomi raised an eyebrow.
“And we are done making absolute assumptions.”
Fair.
Richard might have believed he could pressure them.
Or he had another document.
Naomi searched the continuity trust records.
One amendment appeared.
Filed five months earlier.
It changed extraordinary decision authority from unanimous to majority.
Signature:
Amelia Hayes.
Mine.
Not mine.
If valid, Richard needed only one other trustee.
Two votes.
He plus either Naomi or Adrian.
The amendment also added one clause.
Emergency access to sealed legacy technology may be authorized by continuity trustee majority if necessary to preserve company value.
Avalon.
There it was.
Richard was not trying only to inherit wealth.
He was trying to become legally capable of reopening Avalon after my death.
“Who filed this?”
My family office.
Submission account:
Marianne Cole.
Not Adrian.
His sister.
Marianne had served as deputy general counsel for Hayes Advanced Systems for twelve years.
She was also Naomi’s former colleague.
Adrian went completely still.
“My sister would not.”
Naomi looked at him.
He corrected himself.
“I need to speak to her.”
Good.
Nobody was exempt from evidence anymore.
Marianne answered immediately.
She denied filing the amendment.
Her credentials had been used from a remote terminal inside Avalon Ridge Facility.
An allegedly sealed building.
Adrian’s security logs showed no official entry.
Then he checked legacy power consumption.
The facility was not dormant.
It had been drawing electricity every night.
May you like
For six years.
Continue to the next part: The research facility Amelia believed had been abandoned after her father’s death has secretly remained active every night.
