Chapter 14 - CONTINGENCY B
Nobody knew what Contingency B meant.
Ruiz placed an officer outside Noah’s hospital room and another at the mansion.
Margaret had been released pending further review because the stair incident still depended heavily on witness statements.
Leonard was being held for obstruction and evidence tampering.
Charles had agreed to cooperate.
Yet I felt less safe than before.
At 2:00 a.m., Grace called me from the mansion.
“Someone is inside.”
I sat upright in the hospital chair.
“Lock yourself in a room.”
“I’m in the pantry. I heard glass break in the library.”
“Police are on the way.”
Then she whispered, “Daniel, they’re looking for your father’s recorder.”
I glanced at the evidence bag beside Ruiz’s chair.
The recorder was safe.
“Let them look.”
A crash sounded through the phone.
Grace gasped.
Then the line went dead.
By the time officers reached the estate, the intruder was gone.
Grace was shaken but unhurt.
The library had been torn apart.
One thing was missing.
Emma’s laptop.
“Why take that?” Ruiz asked.
“Because of the draft email.”
“No. We already copied it.”
I stared at the empty space on the desk.
Then I remembered Emma’s password.
Noah’s birthday.
The laptop wasn’t important because of what was on it.
It was important because of what it could open.
Emma used the same password for an encrypted cloud folder.
I logged in from my phone.
A hidden directory appeared.
Inside were photos of trust documents, Graybridge invoices, and one video recorded in Emma’s car the day before she died.
She looked exhausted.
“If Daniel sees this,” she said, “I was right about Margaret, but I was wrong about who started it.”
She looked over her shoulder before continuing.
“Leonard is scared of someone else.”
Then she held a paper toward the camera.
At the top was a company name.
BENTON FAMILY CAPITAL.
May you like
My uncle’s firm.
And suddenly Charles’s confession looked incomplete.
