Chapter 3 - Someone Was Upstairs With Them
Officer Cole called for backup.
Daniel carried Lily into the sitting room and refused to put her down.
Emma remained beside them.
Vanessa was instructed to stay where officers could see her.
Then footsteps sounded above.
Slow.
Measured.
A man appeared at the top of the staircase.
Daniel recognized him.
“Marcus?”
Marcus Vale had been Daniel’s private financial adviser for six years.
He raised both hands.
“I can explain.”
Daniel stared.
“You’re in my house without permission.”
Vanessa interrupted.
“He has permission.”
Daniel turned toward her.
“From who?”
Vanessa realized her mistake.
Marcus claimed Vanessa had asked him to retrieve business documents.
Officer Cole asked why he had entered without announcing himself.
Marcus had no convincing answer.
Then another officer checked Daniel’s study.
Inside a desk drawer was a prepaid phone Daniel had never seen.
The device contained messages discussing offshore accounts, cash
transfers, and what appeared to be instructions from Daniel authorizing
them.
Daniel looked at Marcus.
“These aren’t mine.”
Marcus calmly answered:
“Then somebody is trying to frame you.”
Emma stared at him.
“That’s what you were doing.”
Marcus smiled faintly.
“You’re a maid, Emma. You don’t understand corporate records.”
Daniel’s expression hardened.
“She understood enough to protect my daughter.”
The phone was preserved as evidence.
Then investigators found something stranger.
The device had been activated using Daniel’s identification information.
Several messages were timestamped during periods Daniel could prove he
was on commercial flights or inside board meetings.
The frame was imperfect.
Why risk planting it?
Emma remembered the recording.
“The police were supposed to find it tonight.”
Officer Cole understood.
Lily’s abuse was not only cruelty.
It was bait.
Someone wanted police inside Daniel’s mansion under emotionally chaotic
circumstances.
Once officers entered, the hidden phone could be “discovered.”
The resulting investigation might connect Daniel to financial crimes.
Daniel looked at Vanessa.
“You used Lily to create a reason for police to search my house?”
Vanessa began crying.
“No.”
Marcus said sharply:
“Stop talking.”
Daniel heard it.
So did the officers.
Vanessa turned toward Marcus.
“You said nobody would hurt her.”
Daniel went still.
Marcus’s confidence disappeared for the first time.
May you like
Vanessa had just admitted there was a plan.
But she had also suggested the plan was bigger than she understood.
