Chapter 6 - The Man Behind the Investor
By the next morning, Peter Morgan was no longer the most powerful man in his own project.
His board had appointed an independent committee.
His corporate email access was restricted.
Daniel Price had retained counsel.
And a second article appeared online claiming Peter had secretly returned to Veroa to reunite with an old girlfriend and had manipulated the land acquisition strategy to enrich her family.
Megan read exactly three paragraphs.
Then she threw the newspaper into the woodstove.
Harold watched it burn.
“Good article?”
“Excellent kindling.”
Peter sat across from them drinking coffee.
“You don’t have to defend me.”
Megan turned.
“I’m not defending you.”
“Okay.”
“I’m defending facts.”
“Sounds familiar.”
She glared.
He smiled.
For one absurd second, they were twenty again.
Then Ryan Cole arrived with Dana Whitcomb.
Dana carried a folder.
“We received final confirmation from the state laboratory.”
Megan stood.
“The sample?”
“Fraudulent.”
Her knees almost weakened.
Dana continued.
“There was never a positive Turner Dairy sample. The submission record was manually inserted into the laboratory’s intake system.”
Megan put a hand over her mouth.
Harold closed his eyes.
“So we’re cleared?”
“The health hold is lifted effective immediately.”
Harold let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob.
Megan hugged him.
She had not intended to.
He held her tightly.
Dana waited.
“There’s more.”
Megan released her father.
“What?”
“We traced the inspector code theft.”
“To Michael?”
“Indirectly.”
Dana opened the folder.
“A temporary county employee named Nathan Bell copied credentials from my workstation four months ago. He says he was paid five thousand dollars.”
“By who?”
“He never met the person directly.”
Peter sighed.
“Of course.”
“But payment originated from Prairie Meridian.”
That helped.
Not enough.
Ryan added, “Bell also admitted delivering empty sample containers to Miller’s Market.”
Megan turned toward Peter.
“So Michael is finished.”
“Maybe,” Ryan said.
That word again.
Megan hated that word.
“Why maybe?”
“Michael’s cooperating.”
Harold snorted.
“Cowards become cooperative right around the time handcuffs appear.”
Ryan almost smiled.
“He says Daniel Price designed the plan.”
Peter’s expression did not change.
“Does he have proof?”
“Possibly.”
Michael had requested to speak with Peter and Megan together.
Megan refused at first.
Then Peter said, “If he knows how Daniel framed my account, I need to hear it.”
So at noon they sat inside the county sheriff’s interview room.
Michael entered with his attorney.
He looked smaller.
Not physically.
Something else had changed.
The confident man from the harvest fair was gone.
His expensive jacket was wrinkled.
There were gray shadows beneath his eyes.
Megan felt no satisfaction.
That surprised her.
Michael looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re caught.”
He flinched.
“You’re right.”
Peter leaned back.
“Talk.”
Michael looked at his lawyer.
She nodded.
He began.
Daniel Price contacted him fourteen months earlier.
Daniel already knew Morgan Regional was evaluating Veroa.
He knew where the likely access corridors would run.
He offered Michael an opportunity.
Acquire strategic parcels before Peter’s company publicly announced the project.
When the route became official, the land could be sold or leased at enormous profit.
“What did you get?” Megan asked.
“Twenty percent.”
“And exclusive grocery distribution.”
Peter’s face darkened.
“I never approved that.”
“I know.”
Michael looked down.
“That was the point.”
Peter asked, “Why Turner?”
“Your west field created the cleanest access line.”
“So you asked me to sell.”
“Yes.”
“I said no.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
Michael swallowed.
“Daniel said pressure changed people’s definition of no.”
Megan’s hands curled into fists.
“What pressure?”
“Lost contracts first.”
“You called restaurants.”
“Some.”
“You spread the rumors about my father?”
Michael stared at the table.
“Yes.”
Megan stopped moving.
That hurt differently from the business sabotage.
“You told people he was confused.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To make the farm look unstable.”
Her voice shook.
“My father spent forty-seven years building that dairy.”
“I know.”
“You sat at our kitchen table.”
“I know.”
“He treated you like family.”
Michael closed his eyes.
“I know.”
Megan stood.
Peter touched her wrist.
Not restraining.
Just there.
She stayed.
“What about the contamination?”
Michael shook his head.
“That was Daniel.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
“I helped him get the containers. I knew he wanted to create a regulatory problem. I didn’t know he was going to fabricate Listeria.”
“And the fire?”
Michael looked genuinely frightened.
“I did not set the fire.”
Megan stared.
“You were driving away.”
“Because Daniel called me.”
Peter leaned forward.
“What?”
“He said somebody had discovered documents that could connect the land purchases to us.”
“The blue crate,” Megan whispered.
Michael nodded.
“He told me to check whether anything had been removed from the cellar.”
“You went onto my property?”
“Yes.”
“With Brooke?”
“She didn’t know why.”
“And the fire?”
“When we reached County Nine, I saw smoke.”
Megan narrowed her eyes.
“You expect me to believe you happened to arrive when the barn burned?”
“No.”
Michael’s face went pale.
“I think Daniel wanted me there.”
Peter understood first.
“To implicate you.”
Michael nodded.
“If anyone saw the SUV, suspicion went to me.”
“Convenient.”
Michael laughed bitterly.
“He’s been doing that the entire time.”
Peter’s eyes hardened.
“What about my login?”
Michael looked at him.
“Daniel has your hardware token.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“He photographed it.”
Peter froze.
Michael continued.
“Remember the Chicago executive retreat in May?”
Peter’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“You left your company laptop in the boardroom during dinner.”
Peter looked toward Ryan.
“Daniel stayed behind.”
Ryan wrote something down.
Michael nodded.
“He cloned credentials. I don’t understand the technical part.”
Peter did.
Enough of it.
“But a login from my account would still require a verification event.”
Michael leaned forward.
“Daniel scheduled it for a night he knew you’d be traveling.”
Peter went still.
“The Denver flight.”
“He said you connected through the corporate VPN at the airport. It gave him enough traffic to hide the false login.”
Megan watched Peter realize how carefully he had been framed.
Michael reached into his attorney’s folder.
“There’s something else.”
His lawyer handed Ryan a flash drive.
“What’s that?”
“Daniel kept audio notes.”
Peter frowned.
“Why?”
“He trusted nobody. Including me.”
Michael looked at Megan.
“I copied them two months ago because I started realizing if this collapsed, he planned to blame everything on me.”
Ryan took the drive.
“What’s on it?”
“One recording matters.”
Michael’s voice shook.
“He talks about the fire.”
The room went silent.
Megan leaned forward.
“What does he say?”
“That he hired someone to remove the Turner documents.”
Her heart pounded.
“And?”
Michael looked at her.
“He says the man panicked when your father returned unexpectedly.”
Harold had gone to the barn that evening for a missing tool.
Megan remembered.
“The fire was an accident?”
Michael hesitated.
“No.”
Her stomach dropped.
“The man used an accelerant because Daniel told him nothing could remain.”
Peter whispered, “Jesus.”
Megan stared at Michael.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Ryan stood.
“We’ll listen now.”
He left with the flash drive.
Twenty minutes later, he returned.
His expression was urgent.
“We have enough for warrants.”
Peter stood.
“For Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“That’s the problem.”
Daniel’s phone had gone offline ninety minutes earlier.
His company vehicle was found abandoned outside Madison.
But investigators discovered one final email sent from his private account.
To Prairie Meridian’s attorney.
It contained instructions to destroy specific original records stored at an old creamery property fifteen miles outside Veroa.
Michael stood abruptly.
“What records?”
Ryan looked at him.
“Land agreements. Payment ledgers. Copies of the forged Turner option.”
Megan’s heart raced.
“If those records prove my father’s signature was altered—”
“They’re critical.”
Peter asked, “Where’s the creamery?”
Ryan told him.
Michael went white.
“I know that building.”
Everyone looked at him.
He swallowed.
“There’s an incinerator in the old boiler room.”
Ryan immediately reached for his radio.
Then Peter’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
“Peter Morgan?”
Daniel Price’s voice.
Peter’s eyes sharpened.
“Daniel.”
Megan stood.
Daniel laughed softly.
“I hear Michael found religion.”
“Where are you?”
“You always did ask the wrong question.”
Peter put the call on speaker.
“What question should I ask?”
There was a pause.
Then Daniel said:
“Ask where Harold Turner is.”
Megan’s blood went cold.
She grabbed her phone.
Three missed calls.
All from her father.
Then a text appeared.
Sent fourteen minutes earlier.
MEGAN, SOMEONE FOUND YOUR MOTHER’S BLUE BOX. I’M GOING TO PICK IT UP.
Megan looked at Ryan.
“My father left the farm.”
Daniel spoke again.
“Old men really should be more careful about answering anonymous phone calls.”
The line went dead.
May you like
And for the first time since the nightmare began, Megan Turner was no longer afraid of losing her farm.
She was afraid she was about to lose her father.
