Chapter 6 - THE UNLIKELY ALLYI immediately left Emily’s bedside and found Detective Vance, who was finishing up his statement with the hospital staff. I dragged him into a private corner and relayed everything Emily had told me about the man with the silver briefcase.
Vance listened attentively, his forehead creasing into deep furrows.
“A third party,” Vance mused, rubbing his chin. “That changes things. A basic family domestic dispute doesn't usually involve high-level corporate cyber-fraud hackers. Your mother isn't tech-savvy enough to pull that off on her own.”
“She isn’t,” I agreed. “She barely knows how to use her smartphone. Someone else planned this whole financial hit!”
“We need to check your home’s external security cameras,” Vance said. “Not the internal ones she tampered with—the street cameras or your neighbors' Ring doorbells.”
Thirty minutes later, Vance arranged for a police unit to secure my neighborhood. He allowed me to ride along with him back to my house.
When we pulled up to my suburban home, the front door was taped off with yellow police scene tape. Walking back inside sent a shudder through my frame. The living room was still a mess—dirty dishes, unwashed baby clothes, stale food left on the counter.
Vance walked straight across the street to my neighbor, Mr. Henderson, a retired military officer who had security cameras covering the entire cul-de-sac.
Mr. Henderson eagerly pulled up his cloud footage from two days ago.
“Right there!” I pointed at the screen.
At 2:15 PM on Tuesday, a slick silver sedan had pulled into my driveway. A man wearing a tailored suit and carrying a silver briefcase stepped out and was greeted at the door by my mother, Linda.
When the man turned his face toward the camera, my jaw dropped in absolute shock.
“I know him...” I whispered.
Detective Vance leaned in closer. “Who is he?”
“That’s Victor Vance—no relation to you,” I said, turning to the detective. “He’s the Chief Financial Officer of my company! My boss’s boss!”
The horror of the true plot began to unravel in my mind.
This wasn't just a mother trying to steal her son’s house. This was a massive corporate embezzlement scheme. Victor Vance, the CFO, had been stealing millions from the regional freight company for years. He needed a scapegoat to take the fall for his missing funds.
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He had approached my greedy, bitter mother, offering her a cut of the stolen money—or promising her my house and assets—if she helped him plant the hacking device inside my home router and frame me while I was away!
My mother had sacrificed her own son, tortured her daughter-in-law, and endangered her infant grandson... all for a paycheck from a corrupt executive.
