Chapter 14 - The Wrong Person
I did not speak to Claire for three days.
Anger was safer than disappointment.
The recorder itself remained secured, so the audio was not lost.
But chain-of-custody became more complicated once the forensic image disappeared.
Daniel’s lawyers attacked immediately.
If someone inside our circle could access evidence storage, they argued, what else might have been handled improperly?
Thomas hated the argument because it was strategically effective.
“Whoever stole that drive did not need to destroy the recording,” he said. “They needed to make the process look contaminated.”
That was smarter.
And uglier.
Ava investigated the archive access logs.
Claire had never entered.
Neither had Daniel.
The stolen drive had been accessed using Naomi Brooks’s credential.
My forensic accountant.
The woman helping us trace every transfer.
For the first time since the slap, I genuinely wondered whether I had built my own case around someone working against me.
Naomi looked furious when confronted.
“I was in court with you when the archive was accessed.”
She was.
Security footage confirmed it.
Her credential had been cloned.
“Who had access to your badge?” Ava asked.
Naomi went quiet.
“My assistant.”
“Name?”
“Jordan Wells.”
Jordan had worked for Naomi for four years.
No criminal history.
No family connection.
But bank subpoenas uncovered a payment three weeks earlier.
$18,000.
From Larkspur Advisory.
Evelyn’s shell company.
Evelyn stared at the transaction record when Ava showed her.
“I didn’t authorize that.”
“You owned the account.”
“Daniel had access.”
There it was again.
Every road splitting between them.
Jordan disappeared before police reached his apartment.
This time, unlike Robert, he did leave signs of flight.
Closet half empty.
Laptop gone.
Rental car booked with cash.
The evidence drive was likely with him.
Our plan had failed because Daniel’s corruption did not stop at relatives.
He bought people around the process.
When I finally called Claire, she answered crying.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“I want to fix it.”
“You may not be able to.”
Silence.
Then she said, “Daniel didn’t only threaten my loan.”
I waited.
“He threatened my mother.”
Aunt Margaret.
“What do you mean?”
“He said if I didn’t tell him where Thomas kept backups, he would release documents showing Mom guaranteed the Halston condo.”
“But those guarantees were forged.”
“We know that now. She didn’t.”
Daniel had used the false crime he created in Margaret’s name to frighten Claire into helping him conceal another crime.
A room around a room.
I suddenly understood why so many people had failed me without necessarily wanting to destroy me.
Daniel did not need loyalty.
He needed fear.
That realization changed what I had to do next.
Stop treating every frightened relative as an enemy.
Separate the coerced from the willing.
At the emergency hearing, Thomas asked the judge to appoint an independent evidence custodian and expand forensic discovery into Larkspur payments.
The court agreed.
Daniel lost one strategic advantage.
Then Ava received a call.
Jordan Wells had been stopped at the airport.
He had the stolen drive.
But he also had something nobody expected.
May you like
A handwritten letter from Evelyn.
📖 Jordan was caught with our stolen evidence, but the letter in his luggage showed Evelyn had been planning her own escape from Daniel long before she ever ran from the mansion. 👇
