"Wh-what?" The butler didn’t know when he stuttered, the laptop almost slipping through his fingers.
Craig scratched his head, wondering why Maxwell Kensington, who had been babbling just a mont ago, suddenly went mum.
Even this proud butler, who had spoken so fluently and eloquently as he insulted him, was now stuttering.
"Why? You look and sound very bright. It’s surprising you didn’t grasp what I said the first ti."
"Fine. I’ll repeat myself, this Lois Fletcher you’re looking for is Kelsie Sutton’s mother, and she died twenty-seven years ago in a..."
He abruptly stopped talking and jumped in fear when the briefcase fell to the floor with a loud thud.
"Lois is dead?" Maxwell finally summoned the courage to ask, his stable voice cracking at the end.
Craig glared at the butler as he answered, "I don’t rember the details of her accident, but I believe it was a trailer that lost control of its brakes. Her husband claid her body after she died at Haven dical Center."
"Of course, I only know this because the company she headed was slightly big back then. After she died, it didn’t stand upright any longer and got into all kinds of legal trouble, which quickly made it irrelevant."
Without another word, Maxwell lowered his eyes, reached for his tie and slowly tugged it until it was loose.
No one said another word until Jane stepped forward.
"Ms. Sutton asked to be with Mr. Adler when I push the button in the briefcase. She must’ve known soone would show up, but we’ll only find that out if we can get her out of prison."
Maxwell’s eyes snapped toward her.
Though he was still trying to wrap his head around Lois’ death, he felt obliged to help out hearing her daughter was in prison and calmly questioned, "Why is she in prison?"
Jane didn’t know who this person was, but after getting Jett’s nod of approval to go ahead, she began explaining, "As her lawyer, it was disclosed to that she’s under arrest for the murder of a certain Charlotte Hastings."
"The only reason they’re able to keep her in prison is because her fingerprints were said to be found on the murder weapon, and the surveillance cara near where they found Charlotte Hastings’ body captured the back of a woman with her body fra."
Jett’s brows imdiately furrowed and he ntally began flipping through hundreds of nas in his mory.
He wasn’t one to rember nas with faces, but he always committed certain nas to mory.
Adler Group had never done business with any family nad Hastings, so he was certain it wasn’t a business partner he’d offended.
If it was one of Kelsie’s patients, he’d have to have t her for it to ring a bell and since he rarely t her clients, it was neither of those.
So he searched deeper, moving to the triplets. That was when he recalled the face and the events of that day in the classroom, when a certain teacher accused Keira of stealing another child’s bottle.
He hadn’t had any evidence to defend his daughter even though he knew she didn’t do it, so he ordered the said premium-quality bottles and had them shared to everyone in Keira’s class to show to the child’s parents that his daughter wouldn’t steal sothing her father could buy a thousand of.
Recalling who she was, he promptly inford Jane of it.
"Charlotte Hastings. That’s Keira’s horoom teacher. It was the first day I picked up the triplets, and I heard Keira crying from the hallway."
"When I got there, the adults said she stole a water bottle. One of the two teachers there that day insisted she was the one. I only found out the teacher’s na was Charlotte Hastings after I took care of the situation."
"She slapped Keira, and I almost did the sa to her. But I was going to take care of her later. So if anything, the police should’ve co for , not Kelsie."
At this, Maxwell and Jane looked up at him.
Maxwell was slightly confused.
How had the conversation veered off from this daughter he didn’t know Lois had to... triplets?
Lois herself was a triplet, so it was possible she’d had a pair herself. But this wasn’t the right ti to ask, so despite his curiouity, he refrained from bringing it up.
"That’s it!" Jane’s finger-snap caught their attention.
"That’s what?" Jett squinted at her thoughtfully.
She stared into nothing as she began recounting, "One ti in kindergarten, a teacher got upset after she found a side of my hair that I’d mistakenly dyed pink."
"Though I tried to explain it was an accident, she picked up scissors and rcilessly cut it off. It was a huge chunk of my hair and I cried all day."
"When my mother found out the next morning, she followed to school with a pair of scissors and..."
"Well, let’s just say when she was done with the teacher, the woman couldn’t co to school for three months because she had to grow her hair out."
"Keeping in mind that every mother is like my mother... what would Ms. Sutton have done to a woman who publicly accused her daughter of being a thief and even slapped her?"
They didn’t need to think too hard to arrive at the sa conclusion.
Jett suddenly thought back to Kelsie’s calmness that night. He was feeling pretty bad about how useless he’d been in handling the situation.
So when he told Kelsie about it, he’d failed to notice how dismissive she was of the situation and concluded she trusted him to take care of it properly.
Now that he thought about it... when she said she was going to see a friend...
All of a sudden, his lips drew back into a proud grin.
Jane exhaled in relief.
"Mr. Adler, you seem to know sothing."
Jett, however, simply asked her, "If Kelsie didn’t harm her that day, why would she harm her months later?"
She shrugged, "The defense will argue she waited for everyone to forget what happened before striking."
"But even if we sohow prove to the judge that she didn’t do it, we still need to explain how her fingerprints got on the murder weapon."
"Soone having the sa body build as her is easy to dismiss, but the fingerprints won’t be."
Maxwell forced down the lump in his throat as he spoke up.
"I’ve been working on sothing for the past few months which I planned to lend it to the governnt. It’s a device that can prove whether fingerprints were doctored on a weapon."
"Usually, when you hold a weapon, you grip it with your entire palm. My device scans the weapon to show whether it was held that way. If it wasn’t, then you know the print was engineered."
The words were barely out of his mouth when Jane sighed warily and took out her phone, scrolling through her contacts with a dismissive wave of her hand.
"Pardon my skepticism, but it takes years, if not decades, to get in touch with the governnt."
"So unless you’re so very wealthy man who can get them to do your bidding at the snap of your fingers, Ms. Sutton will be at least fifty before we can use your machine to prove her innocence."
The place fell silent.
It was so oddly silent that the realization of who he might be dawned on Jane just seconds later.
Only Craig was tactless enough not to understand what was going on and began to chastise Jett with righteous indignation.
"She’s hopeless. If you’re not going to let your lover go, the least you can do to save Adler Group is give it to soone who can."
"Since I can’t, and Daniel can’t, give it to Boyce. He may not be as good as you, but he won’t blindly crash it to the ground like you intend to!"
By the ti he finished speaking, Maxwell already had his phone pressed against his ear and was walking into a corner whilst the rest of the group ignored Craig.
As he made the call, in Silicon Valley Prison, a certain middle-aged man was being forced to eat dust out in the field by so younger inmates.
"So you stole a car, eh? If you’re so quick-witted, why didn’t you see us in ti to run?"
"Don’t be rude. He seems to be in his fifties. It’s normal he’s slow."
"That’s not an excuse. My dad is 70 and still as strong as a stallion. If I wasn’t so stubborn and didn’t give him high blood pressure, he’d still look 40. This sack of at is just lazy."
"Given how smooth his skin was when he ca in, he must be one of those who sit at the high table and take the crumbs given to the elderly in the form of pensions."
"Don’t say that. You’re only going to make want to hit him. Okay, screw that. Since when do I say no to my emotions? I’m just going to..."
A sharp, squeaky sound from the hinge of the gate behind them suddenly echoed, prompting those with their backs turned to it to quickly move away.
The head warden walked into the field with three correction officers, heading straight to the middle-aged man on the ground.
Squatting to his level, he nudged him roughly with his foot and began speaking when the dusty figure stirred.
"Mr. Sutton, there’s a very good man who wants you out of here, but he says you have to testify at a court hearing tomorrow morning. Does that sound like sothing you can..."
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" Jerry Sutton nodded fervently, taking the words right out of the warden’s mouth.
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