Chapter 4 - Detective Hayes’s DiscoveryMonday morning. The interrogation room of the Boston precinct smelled of stale donuts and damp wool.
Detective Hayes pushed a thick manila folder across the metal table, rubbing his tired eyes. He looked at me with a mixture of professional exhaustion and lingering suspicion.
“Your sister’s legal team filed the preliminary asset seizure motions this morning,” Hayes said, leaning against the doorframe. “They’re trying to strip your business holdings in Seattle and hand over your personal bank accounts to Grant Mercer’s corporate trust as restitution for the alleged fraud. Claire... if you have an alibi, now is the time. Because right now, the digital trail points directly to your SSN.”
I sat back in my chair, my hands cuffed loosely to the bolted loop on the table. I looked up at the detective, completely unbothered.
“Detective Hayes,” I said softly. “Have you ever wondered why a senior cybersecurity consultant with a multi-million-dollar defense portfolio would suddenly decide to steal two million dollars through a sketchy shell company in Delaware?”
Hayes frowned, crossing his arms. “People do desperate things when they’re jealous of their siblings. Your sister told us you were deeply in debt.”
“My net worth is higher than Grant Mercer’s entire commercial portfolio,” I corrected smoothly. “And secondly... did you actually look at the metadata of the IP addresses associated with those fraudulent bank transfers?”
Hayes blinked, narrowing his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
I reached into the pocket of my jacket—which the desk sergeant had thankfully left in my property bag—and pulled out a small, encrypted titanium flash drive, sliding it across the table.
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“That drive contains a complete, cryptographically signed audit log from my firm’s Mirror Mirage security protocol,” I said, locking my eyes onto his. “Every single transaction your department attributes to me was authenticated from a residential IP address registered under Grant Mercer’s personal development office—using a device fingerprint matching Evelyn’s custom-built tablet.”
Hayes stared at the titanium drive as if it were a venomous snake. Slowly, he reached out, picked it up, and walked over to his desktop terminal.
