Ms. CEO’s Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death – Episode 52
Stephen Hayes entered the prison interview room expecting another question about Bennett. Scarlett placed Evelyn’s photograph before him instead. The color left his face before he read the date.
He denied knowing she had survived. Connor remained behind the observation glass so his presence could not become an excuse. Scarlett wanted her father’s answers without fear shaping them.
Investigators showed Stephen the clinic files and the sedative identified in Evelyn’s recording. His signature appeared on a document transferring medical authority to a Vale-owned foundation. The authorization was dated two days before the crash.
Stephen claimed Lynn told him the papers protected Hayes assets if Evelyn became incapacitated. Scarlett asked why anyone expected incapacity before an accident. He had no answer that survived the silence.
At last, he admitted knowing Lynn planned to create a crisis. Evelyn intended to remove him from the company after discovering his affair and theft. Lynn promised an accident that would leave no legal problem.
Stephen insisted he never ordered murder. He signed the papers, provided Evelyn’s schedule, and chose not to ask what Lynn meant. Scarlett told him cowardice did not make his participation smaller.
After the crash, a doctor declared Evelyn dead and advised immediate cremation because of contamination. Stephen accepted a sealed urn without seeing her body. Vale’s foundation handled every medical detail.
Scarlett understood that her father had traded certainty for inheritance. Whether Evelyn died never mattered as long as Stephen gained control. His recent attempt to save Scarlett could not rewrite that choice.
Stephen asked if Evelyn was truly alive. Scarlett refused to reward him with information. The investigation, not his curiosity, now determined what he deserved to know.
He offered one remaining secret. Lynn had ordered him to keep a bank key after the estate settled. She said it insured them against anyone connected to the clinic.
The key opened a safe-deposit box untouched for twelve years. Inside were payment slips, a voice recorder, and correspondence between Lynn and a Vale intermediary. The earliest payment predated the crash by three months.
On the recorder, Lynn negotiated the timing of Evelyn’s route and the dosage needed to keep her conscious but helpless. Vale’s representative promised the body would never create questions. The phrase had allowed Lynn to imagine death without saying it.
Another recording changed the meaning. Vale instructed the driver to preserve Evelyn’s brain function because her knowledge was irreplaceable. The planned murder had always been an abduction.
Payments continued after the funeral. Lynn received money for controlling Scarlett, suppressing questions, and transferring pieces of Evelyn’s company. Bennett later inherited the same network.
Connor listened beside Scarlett as investigators cataloged the evidence. He wanted to hold her, but waited until she reached for him. She refused to let another man’s decision define what happened to her body or grief.
Police obtained a warrant for Lynn. Danielle contacted Scarlett before they reached the Hayes residence. Her mother had disappeared after hearing about Evelyn’s video.
Stephen offered to help find her. Scarlett told him cooperation was part of accountability, not a path back into the family. He agreed without bargaining.
Cypher traced the safe-deposit payments through a maritime medical company. The company owned several research ships registered under different countries. One had transmitted Evelyn’s credentials within the last week.
Then Vale released a public statement accusing Scarlett of fabricating her mother’s survival to distract from Connor’s crimes. He challenged her to prove that the woman in the photograph was not an artificial reconstruction.
Scarlett looked into the cameras outside the bank and declined his game. She said only that Evelyn Hayes had been stolen, and everyone who participated would answer for the years taken from her.