Chapter 7 - Daniel’s Office
Police found Daniel’s office door unlocked.
His desk lamp was on.
His phone lay on the carpet.
Daniel was gone.
No blood. No body. No sign of a fight except one overturned chair and a coffee mug broken near the window.
Rachel kept me outside while forensics worked.
I didn’t listen.
Through the glass wall of Daniel’s conference room, I saw my name written across a legal pad.
Below it were three more names.
ANNA HALE.
CLAIRE NOLAN.
MARCUS VALE.
I knew Marcus.
Everyone in my business did.
He was chairman of Vale Development, the private-equity group that had tried to buy my construction company after Anna died.
I refused.
He smiled at the time and said we’d talk again.
We never did.
Rachel brought the legal pad out in an evidence sleeve.
“Any reason Daniel would connect these four names?”
“No.”
That was a lie.
A memory had surfaced.
Two months before Anna died, she asked me to cancel a dinner with Marcus.
She had been furious.
“He’s moving money through families,” she said.
I thought she meant tax shelters.
I told her to let the lawyers handle it.
She stared at me for a long time and said, “That’s exactly the problem.”
I had forgotten that conversation.
Or maybe I had buried it because remembering meant admitting I hadn’t listened.
Rachel’s phone rang.
She walked away.
I looked through Daniel’s office again.
Something under his desk caught my eye.
A child’s pink slipper.
Lily’s slipper.
I pushed past the tape before an officer could stop me.
“Ethan!” Rachel shouted.
I grabbed the slipper.
Inside, written in black marker, were three numbers.
4 - 1 - 7.
Lily couldn’t write numbers that neatly.
Daniel had put them there.
Rachel stared at the slipper.
“Could be a locker. Safe deposit box. Room number.”
Then Daniel’s office computer woke from sleep by itself.
A video window opened.
Claire appeared live on screen.
She was sitting in a dark room.
May you like
Her hands were tied.
And behind her stood Marcus Vale.
