I caught my husband sleeping with my brother’s wife, so I quietly swapped the lubricant in his bag for industrial glue.
The officer frowned.
“With whom?”
Security footage provided the answer.
Minutes before boarding, Julian had entered a restroom wearing a gray coat. A man in the same coat exited and boarded using Julian’s mobile pass.
Julian emerged later in an airport maintenance jacket.
He had never planned to leave.
“He wanted us focused on the plane,” Brandon said.
“Then where is he going?”
I thought of everything Julian wanted.
Money.
Status.
Control.
But most of all, safety.
There was only one person whose downfall threatened him more than mine.
Arthur.
I called the state investigator handling my father’s detention.
No answer.
Then Mom called.
Her voice was urgent.
“Elena, Arthur is gone.”
“What?”
“His transport vehicle was involved in a staged road blockage. By the time officers cleared it, the rear compartment was empty.”
Julian had not stolen the certificate for himself.
He had taken it to Arthur.
The question was why.
Daniel found the answer in the archive recordings.
Arthur maintained a private aircraft hangar at Centennial Airport under a subsidiary name.
We reached the hangar shortly before sunset.
The doors were partially open.
Inside stood a small jet.
Its engines were silent, but fuel equipment remained connected.
A sedan was parked near the stairs.
Julian’s.
Police surrounded the building.
