Chapter 3 - THE SPOISONED WELLThe sheer audacity of Mary Vance was staggering.
Sitting up in my bed, pain shooting through my fractured ribs, I looked at Detective Miller. “Who is the witness?”
“A man named Julian Croft,” Miller replied, reading from a notepad. “Claims he’s a private security consultant you hired off the dark web to stage an attack on yourself to frame your husband.”
I let out a harsh, bitter laugh that ended in a painful cough. Julian Croft wasn't a dark web mercenary. He was Beckett’s college roommate and current head of physical security at Vance Enterprises.
“Check his bank accounts,” I demanded, my voice growing stronger through pure adrenaline. “Look at wire transfers from 'Vance Holdings LLC' over the past forty-eight hours. They paid him off.”
“We’re already tracing it,” Marcus chimed in, stepping forward. “But Detective, the audio recording from the hospital proves physical strangulation by Beckett Vance.”
“Harrison Blake is arguing the audio was generated using deepfake AI technology,” Detective Miller said quietly. “He claims Clara—being a cybersecurity mastermind—fabricated the entire audio track using voice synthesis of her husband and mother-in-law.”
The room went cold. It was brilliant. Evil, but brilliant. In an era where AI could mimic anyone's voice with three seconds of audio sample, they were using my own expertise against me.
“If it’s AI,” I whispered, looking directly into Detective Miller’s eyes, “then explain the blood under Beckett’s fingernails. Explain why my father’s toxicology report from two years ago was altered.”
The room plunged into absolute silence.
Detective Miller froze. “What did you just say about your father?”
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I reached into my hospital gown, pulling out a small, encrypted flash drive I had hidden inside my neck brace before the police arrived.
“My father didn't die of a heart attack two years ago,” I declared, tears burning my swollen eyes. “Beckett and Mary were poisoning his digital pacemaker. And I have the telemetry logs to prove it.”
