Chapter 3 - Secrets Beneath the FloorboardsWith Marcus Vance on the run and the trial temporarily suspended, the investigation blew wide open. Acting on emergency warrants granted by the midnight judge, a tactical unit raided a dilapidated industrial warehouse on the outskirts of town—an address tied to Vance's LLC.
Inside, detectives found a scene that sent chills down their spines.
It wasn't just a hideout. It was a command center.
Covering an entire wall of the damp, concrete office was a massive corkboard webbed with red yarn. At the center of the web were photographs of Ava’s family: her parents, her hospitalized aunt, and photographs of Ava herself playing in the front yard. Financial documents, property deeds, and confidential legal documents detailing a multi-million-dollar inheritance trust were pinned everywhere.
Ava’s aunt, the sole survivor of the brutal attack, was the only obstacle standing between an unknown mastermind and a massive family fortune. And Marcus Vance was the hired hand meant to clean house.
Back at the precinct, the primary defendant—realizing he had been completely abandoned and sold out by Vance—finally cracked during interrogation.
"I didn't want to hurt the kid!" the defendant sobbed, his head buried in his cuffed hands across the metal table. "Vance said we just needed to scare the aunt into signing the estate transfer papers. He said if anyone got in the way, we deal with it. But Vance... Vance was obsessed with the house. He said there was something hidden beneath the floorboards that the family never knew about."
"What kind of thing?" the lead detective demanded, leaning across the table.
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"I don't know! Documents, cash, blackmail—something huge. Vance spent months researching this family before he ever hired me."
The detective slammed his notebook shut and grabbed his radio. "Get a forensics and structural engineering team to the victim's house immediately. Tear up the living room floorboards if you have to. Find out what Marcus Vance was looking for."
