Chapter 7 - The Phone in His Pocket
Sienna saw the movement first.
“His jacket.”
One officer stepped forward.
Garrick pulled out a black phone.
It was Sienna’s.
He held it over the wine pitcher.
“Back away.”
The officer remained calm.
“Place the phone on the table, sir.”
“This belongs to my wife.”
“Then she can confirm that.”
Sienna did.
“He took it from me three weeks ago.”
Garrick’s thumb moved across the screen.
He was trying to erase something.
Sienna’s mother remained unnervingly calm.
“You’re too late.”
Garrick looked at her.
“The recording was uploaded before you took the phone.”
That was not entirely true.
Sienna’s mother did not yet know what had been saved.
But Garrick believed her.
Panic changed his face.
He dropped the phone into the pitcher.
Red wine splashed across the tablecloth.
Miriam gasped.
The officers immediately restrained Garrick’s arms and moved the pitcher away.
No weapons were drawn.
No one shouted.
Garrick’s breathing became harsh.
“It was an accident.”
“What was?” Sienna asked.
He looked at her.
“The phone.”
“No. The stairs.”
Silence.
Garrick’s jaw tightened.
Sienna continued.
“You keep calling everything an accident after you cause it.”
The damaged phone was placed inside an evidence bag.
A technician would attempt to recover its contents.
But Sienna’s mother had already taken another precaution.
The photograph Sienna sent before the fall contained more than a bank statement.
In the reflection of Garrick’s glass desk, a second document was visible.
It showed a private transfer schedule.
Charles enlarged the photograph earlier that day.
The next transfer was scheduled for midnight.
Nine million dollars would leave Ashford Industries and move to an overseas account.
Once the money cleared, Garrick planned to announce his separation from Sienna and leave the United States with Elise.
The promotion was never his final goal.
He intended to become president long enough to authorize one massive transfer, then disappear before auditors discovered it.
Miriam stared at him.
“You said the money would remain under family control.”
Garrick laughed bitterly.
“You really thought I was taking you with me?”
Her face lost all color.
He had used his mother too.
Then Charles revealed that Elise had contacted investigators that morning.
She was not waiting at the river mansion.
She was waiting inside the local district attorney’s office.
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And she had brought Garrick’s private ledger.
👉 Elise had betrayed Garrick before Sunday dinner began—but the reason she turned against him was tied to a secret Miriam had kept for more than thirty years.
