The Stolen Chance

In “The Stolen Chance,” Charles Vaughn is a draftsman with champagne dreams and an eight-dollar-a-week reality, desperately trying to win the heart of wealthy socialite Edith Settle. When his brilliant mentor Alex Gerber unveils a breakthrough in supersonic aviation—a pressurized pilot’s compartment—Charles sees his escape route. He claims the invention as his own, pitching it to industrial titan Martin Cross, but that lie traps him on a path he can’t walk back from. To pull it off, Charles murders Gerber and then races to Williston to silence Dr. Fisher, the only person who knows Gerber was the true inventor. But in a cruel twist, the “doctor” Charles kills is actually Fisher’s husband, and the real Dr. Fisher is very much alive—an unassuming woman who calmly tells police exactly who Charles is and why he killed. In the end, the opportunity Charles tried to steal becomes the evidence that destroys him.