Chapter 8 - The Dead Prosecutor Left One Final Witness
The final witness was a woman named Lydia Marsh. Federal agents brought her to a secure interview room after she agreed to testify. She was forty, wore her hair in a short dark bob, and looked exhausted by years of living under another name.
"I wasn't Adrian's fiancée," she told me. "I was the accountant who discovered the accounts. Viktor used my disappearance to make women afraid of marrying him."
She had found payments to a private clinic, to Raymond's shell companies, and to a man who had served as a driver for Michael Sokolov on the day he died. Lydia also had a recording made by Michael shortly before his murder. He spoke of an upcoming meeting with Viktor and identified a second witness: a court clerk who had seen evidence tampered with in the original investigation.
The clerk, Thomas Bell, was alive in Wisconsin. He had spent fifteen years believing no one would listen to him. Price and the federal team arranged a protected interview. Bell confirmed that files were removed from the prosecutor's office after Michael's death, and he identified Viktor's intermediary from an old photograph.
With the testimony, prosecutors prepared charges relating to racketeering, fraud, witness intimidation, and conspiracy. They cautioned us that a conviction was not guaranteed and that the trial could take years. But for the first time the evidence formed a chain that did not depend on my memory or my family's word alone.
Viktor responded by releasing a manipulated video that appeared to show Adrian ordering violence against a rival. The clip spread rapidly. Adrian's board suspended him pending investigation, and reporters crowded the gates of his estate.
"Maybe he deserves some of this," my mother said. "His family hurt people."
"Maybe," I answered. "But I want the truth, not revenge."
Adrian turned over the original security recordings and voluntarily answered investigators' questions. The full footage showed that he had been ordering guards to evacuate employees during an attempted attack. It did not erase the damage his companies had caused under his father and uncle, but it disproved the allegation in the edited clip.
I met him outside the courthouse afterward. He looked tired, his expensive coat damp from the rain.
"You didn't have to come," he said.
"I know."
"I may lose the company."
"Then you'll have to decide who you are without it."
May you like
He looked at me for a long time. "I think I'm beginning to."
Then Price called. Viktor had been located near the Canadian border. He was traveling with Vera, who had contacted authorities and requested protection. She claimed Viktor was carrying the original order for Michael's murder.
