Chapter 5 - The Blue Rabbit
Reporters had already decided the story: a billionaire's pregnant fiancee attacked by a troubled child, followed by a bizarre fight with security.
"That's not what happened," I told Detective Brooks.
"I know. But whoever planted the first version has a head start."
She laid out photographs from the hotel cameras. A man in a delivery uniform had entered the ballroom forty minutes before Ellie. Another had followed Rosa down the service hallway. Cole appeared in four frames, always near the exits.
"The trouble started before the girl touched Vanessa," Brooks said. "That's planning."
Ellie sat on a couch, hugging a blue stuffed rabbit with one crooked ear. Rosa had kept it in the linen closet. When I asked why her mother wanted me to see it, she squeezed the rabbit against her chest.
"Daddy gave me Mr. Blue. Mommy said he guards secrets."
"Can I look?"
She studied me for a long moment. "You have to promise you'll give him back."
"I promise."
A tiny seam behind the rabbit's ear had been stitched with blue thread instead of white. Detective Brooks brought scissors and carefully opened it. Inside was a flat flash drive wrapped in plastic, no bigger than a thumbnail.
The drive held invoices from North Pier Logistics, a shell supplier billing the Vale Foundation for medical shipments, disaster relief supplies, and construction equipment. Each invoice had been paid. Most deliveries never happened.
There were also photographs of van loads entering a warehouse after midnight and a spreadsheet listing transfers worth $63 million.
Then came a video. Nora Bennett appeared on-screen, exhausted, her hair tangled, one cheek bruised.
"Daniel, if you're seeing this, I've run out of people I can trust. Your father wasn't sick when he fell. He was trying to stop the same theft Aaron discovered. I need you to find the original amendment to the Vale Family Trust."
She leaned toward the camera.
"And Daniel? The woman wearing that belly is the person who ordered my husband followed."
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The video cut to black. A new file loaded automatically: a photograph of my father's signature beside a date.
It had been signed six days after we buried him.
