Chapter 2 - Forty Five Seconds Underwater
My security chief stopped the pool cover with seven feet of water still exposed.
The black panels floated above the place where my head had broken through less than a minute earlier.
No one laughed now.
Jason stared at the remote as though it had materialized in his pocket without his knowledge.
“That is not mine.”
Marcus Bell, my security chief, held it inside a handkerchief.
“It opened your car, your private office, and the pool system.”
“I carry several remotes.”
“This one was programmed at 6:14 this evening.”
Jason looked toward Malcolm Sloane again.
The board chairman remained beside the bar, his expression calm enough to appear innocent. He was in his sixties, silver haired, polished, and trusted by every investor who believed age automatically produced integrity.
Malcolm lifted his glass.
“Ava, surely we are not turning a tasteless joke into attempted murder.”
I stepped onto the terrace.
Marcus placed a wool coat around my shoulders. Water pooled beneath my feet. Every muscle in my body had begun trembling, but I would not allow Jason to call it hysteria.
“Who knew about the timer?” I asked.
Malcolm smiled gently.
“You are in shock.”
“That was not my question.”
Jason recovered some of his confidence.
“The cover is automatic. You know that.”
“It does not activate while the motion sensors detect a person in the water.”
Marcus turned the remote over.
“The safety override was enabled.”
A guest near the bar placed his drink down and quietly walked toward the exit.
The French doors closed before he reached them.
Marcus’s officers had sealed the terrace.
Jason’s face tightened.
“You cannot imprison people inside my home.”
I looked at him.
“My name is on the deed.”
The first time I said it, Tiffany glanced down at the ivory robe around her body.
My robe.
My house.
My company.
My husband had borrowed every symbol of power he displayed that night.
He had mistaken possession for ownership because I had spent years allowing him to stand beside what I built.
Attorney Reed arrived through the ballroom carrying a black document case. He was a calm man in his late forties who had represented Carter Dynamics since the company operated from two rented rooms above an auto repair shop.
He saw my soaked dress and looked at Jason.
“What happened?”
“He fell into the trap he designed,” I said.
Reed removed a sealed envelope from the case.
The original prenuptial agreement remained in a bank vault, but certified copies had been distributed to the company’s independent directors that afternoon.
Jason laughed.
“You prepared this before the party.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I looked at Tiffany’s abandoned phone.
“Because someone entered my legal archive three weeks ago and photographed the decoy agreement.”
Tiffany folded the robe more tightly around herself.
Jason pointed toward her.
“She has nothing to do with your files.”
“She posted a photograph from your apartment. My agreement was visible on the table behind her.”
Tiffany looked at him.
“You said it was a divorce draft.”
Jason ignored her.
Reed handed me a small waterproof evidence bag.
Inside was the crystal champagne flute Tiffany had held before I entered the pool.
“The bartender preserved this after Mrs. Carter’s private investigator raised concerns,” he said.
Jason’s expression did not change.
Tiffany’s did.
“What concerns?”
Reed looked at me for permission.
I nodded.
“The preliminary test found a sedative dissolved in the champagne poured for Ava.”
Tiffany stepped backward.
“I never touched her drink.”
“You were holding it when I arrived,” I said.
“Jason gave it to me.”
Every face turned toward him.
He shook his head.
“She is lying because she knows you can destroy her.”
Tiffany began breathing faster.
“You said it would make her calm.”
Jason crossed the distance and caught her wrist.
“Stop talking.”
Marcus immediately separated them.
For the first time, Tiffany looked less like a smug mistress and more like a young woman discovering she had been placed beside the person meant to take the blame.
Reed opened the black case.
“The agreement is not the only protected record. Mrs. Carter authorized a forensic audit of every company account connected to Mr. Carter after learning he had duplicated her digital signature.”
Jason’s eyes sharpened.
“You searched my accounts?”
“I searched mine.”
Carter Dynamics paid his salary. The estate paid his expenses. The private aircraft, the apartment where he met Tiffany, and the company card used to purchase her jewelry all came from structures I owned.
The audit showed three million dollars moved into a shell company named JTC Strategic Holdings.
Jason.
Tiffany.
Carter.
A future built from pieces of my name.
Malcolm finally placed his champagne down.
“This is becoming a corporate matter. The guests should be permitted to leave.”
I looked at him.
“You signed the shell company’s first deposit.”
Malcolm’s expression remained still.
Only his left thumb moved against the side of his glass.
A small involuntary motion.
I had watched him make it during difficult negotiations.
It meant he was calculating how much I knew.
Reed handed Marcus a court order freezing the shell company and preserving every device on the terrace.
Jason laughed again, but no one joined him.
“You think this changes tomorrow’s vote?”
“What vote?” Tiffany asked.
He looked at her with contempt.
“The board is removing Ava as chief executive.”
The words reached several investors standing nearby.
Reed opened another document.
“Based on what grounds?”
“Medical incapacity, emotional instability, and conduct damaging to shareholders.”
Jason gestured toward my soaked body.
“This.”
He had planned the image perfectly.
Ava Carter dragged from her pool after an emotional outburst at a divorce party.
Tiffany filming.
Guests laughing.
Jason holding torn legal papers.
If the cover closed, my death could become an accidental drowning following public humiliation and alcohol consumption.
If I survived, the footage could still support an incapacity vote.
He had built two endings.
Both removed me.
Marcus recovered Tiffany’s phone from the lounge chair.
The livestream had not ended when Jason threw it down.
It was still broadcasting privately to one viewer.
The account name appeared at the top of the screen.
M_SLOANE_BOARD.
Malcolm looked toward the French doors.
Marcus’s officers moved in front of them.
Then a new message appeared on Tiffany’s phone.
May you like
DO NOT LET AVA REACH THE BANK VAULT.
Continue to the next part: Ava learns Malcolm Sloane was watching the livestream and fears something hidden with the original agreement more than the public evidence against Jason.
