Chapter 3 - BROKEN GLASS
The emergency room confirmed two things quickly.
Nothing was broken.
Everything hurt.
I had a deep hip contusion, a sprained wrist, a strained shoulder, and enough bruising to make every movement feel like punishment. If I had landed a few inches differently, the doctor told me, we would be having a very different conversation.
Daniel waited until the nurse stepped out before speaking again.
“My team is preserving the body-cam file,” he said.
“Your team?”
“Two agents on-site. One outside the estate.”
“Watching my family.”
“Yes.”
I lay back against the pillow and stared at him. “My brother shoved me off a balcony and my mother tried to cover it up. I think I’ve earned something more than yes.”
He pulled a chair closer.
“Your family’s charitable arm, Whitmore Horizons, has been under federal review for months.”
That surprised me less than it should have.
Whitmore Horizons had been my father Arthur Whitmore’s pride. A glossy family foundation attached to our medical-device empire, praised for children’s clinics, veterans’ grants, and research partnerships. My brother Marcus took over daily control of it three years ago. Eleanor chaired the board. I resigned from its media committee last year after too many invoices stopped making sense.
I swallowed. “Fraud?”
“We were looking at wire transfers, shell vendors, and misuse of federal grant funds.”
“And that’s why you were pretending to photograph an estate announcement?”
“Yes.”
“Our father’s death announcement.”
His eyes held mine. “Yes.”
That hurt in a way my hip didn’t.
I turned my face away.
“Did you know I’d be pushed?”
“No.”
“Did you know Marcus was dangerous?”
“We suspected pressure, manipulation, and financial misconduct. Violence like that in open daylight?” He shook his head. “No.”
That answer felt real.
“What about my camera?”
“The one that shattered in the courtyard?”
“Yes.”
He paused.
“What about it?”
My pulse quickened. “When Marcus came onto the balcony, I was photographing documents.”
Daniel’s posture changed instantly.
“What documents?”
“A blue estate folder in his hand. I recognized the Whitmore seal.”
“Did you capture them?”
“I think so.”
“Where’s the memory card?”
I closed my eyes.
The camera had hit the courtyard hard enough to break the lens body. The card might have survived. Or it might have been crushed. Or worse—taken.
“Eleanor looked at the camera like it mattered,” I said.
Daniel stood. “I need to secure the scene.”
Before he could move, a detective entered the room with an evidence bag.
Inside was the remains of my camera.
The body was cracked. The lens had split.
The memory-card slot was empty.
I looked up at Daniel.
Someone had reached my broken camera before police bagged it.
And in that courtyard, after I fell, only three people had enough reason to care.
Marcus.
Eleanor.
May you like
And the FBI photographer who had already admitted he was something else.
📖 I wanted to trust Daniel, but when my memory card vanished, I had to consider the possibility that everyone around my fall was hiding something. 👇
