Chapter 3 - THE GIFT ANNA NEVER FINISHED
The audit team reached Cole Heritage after noon.
Security refused entry.
Robert’s attorney claimed the notice lacked valid board authorization because the directors supporting it had resigned.
Mara filed for emergency preservation.
The judge granted only a narrow order preventing destruction of physical and digital design records.
It did not restore my access.
By then, an employee had filmed boxes leaving Anna’s former laboratory through a loading dock.
The truck belonged to Clara’s event company.
She said it carried Christmas decorations.
Silas followed it.
The truck entered a storage facility across town. Before he could photograph the unit number, company security surrounded his car and accused him of stalking Clara.
Police released him without charge.
The delay was enough.
The unit was empty when investigators arrived with consent from the facility manager.
At the hotel, Josephine asked about the monkey.
“Did Mommy make it?”
“I think she worked on it.”
“Why was Grandpa mean about it?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Did I break Christmas?”
“No. Adults broke something before you touched it.”
My answer did not stop her from blaming herself.
That night, an anonymous envelope appeared beneath the hotel door.
Inside was a photograph of Anna standing in her laboratory ten years earlier. She held the same monkey, complete with its smiling head.
On the back, someone had written:
THE MASTER NEVER LEFT THE BUILDING.
No signature.
No fingerprints visible.
Mara warned me not to assume Silas sent it.
The hotel camera showed a hooded employee pushing the envelope under the door, but the face remained hidden.
The next morning, Robert petitioned for an emergency order preventing me from “misappropriating family intellectual property.”
He claimed the monkey belonged to Cole Heritage and that I destroyed it to conceal evidence of my own misconduct.
Attached was a statement from Margaret.
She swore Josephine had rejected several expensive gifts and demanded the prototype.
My daughter had asked for nothing.
Clara provided the edited video as proof.
Then one of Anna’s former assistants contacted Mara.
Her name was Emily Shaw.
She remembered A.C. — 001.
“The monkey was supposed to be destroyed,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because Anna found something inside the production records.”
“What?”
Emily refused to explain by phone.
She agreed to meet at a public library.
She never arrived.
Two hours later, her car was found abandoned near the river.
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On the passenger seat lay a fresh Cole Heritage nondisclosure agreement bearing Emily’s signature.
The date was that morning.
