Chapter 5 — Female Lawyer and Torn Will

Monday morning, when Tue Minh arrived at the office early as usual, she immediately realized something was wrong as soon as she entered the private meeting room. The door lock was still intact, with no signs of tampering on the outside, but the wooden box containing the will pieces - which she had always kept carefully in a file cabinet with a separate lock - was now lying on the glass table, the box lid wide open, and some pieces of paper had completely disappeared.

Her heart pounded upon closer inspection. The most important pieces of paper — the ones she had assembled last weekend, containing a text mentioning "immediate grandchildren" — were gone. She immediately called the building's security department, but the security camera in the hallway on the floor she worked on reported a technical error between ten o'clock at night and five o'clock that morning, a coincidence too suspicious to ignore.

"Someone knows very well about this building's security system," Duy Bach said when he arrived at the office less than half an hour after Tue Minh's emergency call, his eyes scanning the room looking for any traces he might have missed. "Disabling the camera within the necessary time frame, without leaving any physical traces of intrusion, shows that this was no ordinary thief."

"Fortunately, I took pictures of all the pieces and stored them on a cloud drive from the first day," Tue Minh said, trying to keep her voice calm even though her hands were still shaking a bit from the shock. "But the intruder couldn't know that. They took the original pieces of paper, probably thinking that without the originals, I wouldn't be able to prove the authenticity of the will's contents in court."

"That means this person doesn't understand the legal process very well," Duy Bach said, "or they are acting in panic, no longer alert enough to carefully calculate every step. Both possibilities can be a good sign for us — this person is feeling cornered."

Tue Minh immediately called lawyer Doan to report the incident, and as expected, news of the break-in quickly spread to the entire Dam family. At noon that day, she received a call from Dam Quoc Hung himself, but this time, his voice was no longer angry like before, but carried an incomprehensible tone of concern.

"I just heard that your office was broken into," he said, his voice somewhat questioning. "I hope you don't think my family has anything to do with this. We want the truth to be revealed as much as you do, even if our views on the true content of the will are different."

"I haven't accused anyone, Mr. Hung," Tue Minh replied, her voice carefully observing his reaction through every word. "But I hope, if you or anyone in the family learns any useful information, you will cooperate with the investigation agency."

After that call, Tue Minh couldn't help but notice a small but notable detail - throughout the conversation, Quoc Hung never specifically asked which pieces of paper were taken, something that an innocent person, truly worried about justice, would probably be curious to know. She notes this detail in the notebook she always carries with her.

In the afternoon, Duy Bach invited Tue Minh to the police headquarters to review Quoc Hung's preliminary financial inspection results for which he had obtained an arrest warrant. The numbers appearing on the screen startled both of them - Quoc Hung secretly borrowed a huge amount of money from a private investment fund nearly a year ago, using his own shares in the corporation as collateral, to pour into a real estate project that failed miserably just a few months later.

"If he cannot repay this debt, and the mortgaged shares are confiscated, he is at risk of losing control of the group even if he inherits according to the old will," Duy Bach analyzed, his tone serious. "That means he needs the entire inheritance, not just company shares, but real estate and cash, to be able to pay off debt and keep his position."

"And if the new will shares most of that property with another heir — to Anh Vu — then his debt repayment plan will completely collapse," Tue Minh continued, all the pieces in her mind gradually fitting together into a more complete picture. "That was enough incentive for him to do anything to stop the new will from taking effect — including tearing it up, or worse."

"But we still lack direct evidence linking him to the tearing of the will, or to his father's death," Duy Bach reiterated, upholding the cautious principles of a professional investigator. "A strong financial motive is just one piece of the puzzle, not evidence of guilt."

At that moment, Tue Minh's phone vibrated with a text message from Dam Thanh Nha: "Miss Minh, I need to see you urgently. I just accidentally overheard a conversation between my sister-in-law and someone on the phone, mentioning a safe and something about 'must be resolved before it's too late.' I think you need to know this now."

Tue Minh and Duy Bach immediately set out to meet Thanh Nha at a cafe near the family villa. When they arrived, Thanh Nha was already waiting, her face pale with worry.

"I heard Kim Yen talking on the phone in her father's old office. The door was left ajar so I overheard," Thanh Nha said, her voice getting quieter with fear. "She told someone 'everything has been handled well, no one can find any more evidence,' and mentioned 'be careful with that lawyer before she finds out anything else.'"

"Did you hear who she was talking to?" Duy Bach asked, his voice serious, taking note of every detail Thanh Nha told.

"I'm not sure, but I think it could be someone outside the family, maybe the person who helped her disable the security camera or something like that," Thanh Nha replied. "Her voice sounded very tense, different from her usual calm, arrogant look."

This information suddenly turns the investigation into a new angle - not Quoc Hung directly, but it may be Kim Yen, his calculating wife, who is behind tearing up the will and possibly the recent office break-in, acting independently or under the covert direction of her husband.

"We need to be more cautious than ever from now on," Duy Bach said as he sent Tue Minh home that night. "If Kim Yen is truly behind these actions, she has shown how far she is willing to go to protect her family's position. We cannot underestimate the danger of this situation."

"I still have many unanswered questions," Tue Minh said, her voice thoughtful as she looked out the car window. "If Kim Yen was the one who tore up the will, she read its contents before tearing it up, right? That means she knew about Anh Vu's existence well before any of us found out. How long had she known? And how did she know the new safe code that even Mr. Doan didn't know?"

Duy Bach was silent for a moment, thinking carefully before answering. "Perhaps, the answer to that question lies in the only person in that house who has lived long enough to know all the secrets of the Dam family — Mrs. Sau Cam. I think it's time for us to have a more frank and serious conversation with her, perhaps with the official presence of the investigation agency, instead of just social probing questions like before."

When the car stopped in front of Tue Minh's house, the two sat silently for a while in the cramped space of the car, the streetlights shining through the car window creating dim streaks of light on their faces.

"Thank you, for always being there promptly when I need you," Tue Minh said, her voice sincere. "I know your job goes beyond escorting a civil attorney home every night."

"I don't do this just for work," Duy Bach replied, his voice low, his eyes looking at her with a rare sincerity. "I do this because I am truly concerned for your safety, and because I admire the courage you have shown over the past week, facing repeated threats without faltering."

Tue Minh felt her cheeks heat up slightly at those words, a strange feeling that she had never allowed herself to experience during many years of stressful work and being closed off from the outside world. "Let's focus on finding the truth first," she said, though her voice was much softer than its usual sternness. "But thank you, for everything."

When Tue Minh entered the house that night, she stood silently in front of the mirror for a long time, looking at herself and wondering if she was getting too close to a truth more dangerous than she could have imagined. But along with that worry is an even stronger determination - the determination not to let Thanh Nha continue to be falsely accused, not let Dam Anh Vu continue to live in oblivion about his own true origin, and not let those behind the wall of power and money continue to bury a truth that has been suppressed for twenty-five years.

She opened her laptop, reviewed the photos of the will pieces saved in the cloud, and began planning the next step of her investigation — a more direct and fierce confrontation with Ms. Sau Cam, the person she believed held the final key to unlocking the entire truth behind the torn will, and behind the tragic deaths of both generations of the Dam family.