Chapter 8 - THE BOARD MEETING DOMINIC COULD NOT ALLOW
Monday’s meeting had been real.
Rafael planned to remove Dominic from control of several legitimate Corbin entities.
Not because of one suspicious investment.
Because Rafael’s internal accountant had found undisclosed side agreements.
Dominic had personally guaranteed portions of the healthcare fund.
If Caldera-Kline’s value collapsed, he could lose millions.
He had also received performance compensation tied to preserving the investment through a pending transaction.
Then Rafael discovered something worse.
Dominic knew Sofia’s medical case was inside Caldera-Kline’s disputed data months before her death.
He never told him.
Rafael confronted him privately two weeks before the dinner.
Dominic denied wrongdoing.
Then asked:
“You’re really going to destroy everything over one adverse-event file?”
Rafael answered:
“She was my daughter.”
Dominic:
“And the company employs four thousand people.”
Different definitions of acceptable loss.
Rafael told him he was out.
Dominic asked for time.
Rafael gave him until Monday.
Then Saturday happened.
That established motive.
Still not mechanism.
Investigators needed the poisoning.
Vincent’s threat.
The glass.
The timing.
Then Damon remembered something nobody initially considered important.
Dominic carried a leather document case to Bello Rosso.
After Rafael collapsed, it disappeared.
Restaurant footage showed Dominic leaving the private room briefly during the chaos.
He said he was calling counsel.
When he returned, no case.
Police later recovered it from the coat-check storage area.
Inside were normal papers.
Nothing incriminating.
But the interior lining had been recently cleaned.
Again:
Suspicious.
Not proof.
Then lab examination found trace botanical residue in a removable pen sleeve.
Not enough to establish how it got there.
Dominic’s lawyers had explanations.
Herbal supplement.
Contaminated personal item.
Cross-transfer.
Science deserved caution even when I disliked the suspect.
I found myself saying something I used to tell residents:
“Interesting is not the same as conclusive.”
Detective Ruiz smiled.
“Good.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“You’re not trying to win.”
No.
May you like
I had already learned what happened when institutions decided the desired conclusion before evaluating the evidence.
I would not become the mirror image of the people who did that to me.
