Chapter 2 - The Paper Trail of Blood
Hook: A killer leaves fingerprints. A greedy man leaves a receipt.
The arrest at the funeral was just the opening act. Because Daniel was a wealthy man with powerful connections, his high-priced lawyers managed to secure a temporary bail hearing within forty-eight hours, citing "insufficient direct physical evidence linking him to the administration of the toxin."
They thought they had won a round. They didn't realize I expected this.
I sat in my unmarked vehicle across the street from Daniel’s luxury penthouse, watching the rain smear the windshield. My phone buzzed on the passenger seat. It was Marcus, my partner from the homicide division.
"Lena, you need to pull back," Marcus said, his voice laced with anxiety. "Internal Affairs is sniffing around. You used your badge to cause a scene at a funeral, and Voss’s legal team is threatening to sue the department for emotional distress and wrongful harassment. If you don't have a smoking gun, you're going to lose your job."
"I don't care about the job, Marcus," I said, my eyes fixed on the penthouse windows. "I care about Maya. And the baby."
"We found the offshore accounts, yes, but white-collar crime doesn't prove murder. Any good defense attorney will argue that Maya took the wrong supplements herself, or that someone else spiked them. You need the direct link."
"I'm looking at the link right now," I murmured, watching a sleek black town car pull up to the curb outside Daniel’s building.
The door opened, and Celeste stepped out, holding a large designer tote bag. She looked frantic, constantly checking over her shoulder. She didn't look like a grieving mistress anymore; she looked like an accomplice realizing the ship was sinking.
I hung up on Marcus, grabbed my flashlight, and stepped out into the pouring rain.
I followed Celeste into the lobby. The doorman, recognizing me from the news coverage of the funeral scandal, tried to block my path. I didn't flash my badge this time. I looked him dead in the eye. "Call the police if you want. By the time they arrive, I'll have found what she's carrying, and you'll be charged with hindering a federal investigation."
He stepped aside.
I caught the elevator just as the doors were closing, slipping inside right next to Celeste. She gasped, pressing herself against the mirrored wall of the elevator cabin.
"You," she breathed, her hands shaking as she clutched her bag. "You're stalking us. I'll call the police!"
"Go ahead," I said, pressing the button for the penthouse floor. "Let's talk about what's in the bag, Celeste. Let's talk about the flash drives you spent the last two hours retrieving from Daniel’s private safe at his office. The ones he couldn't get himself because he's on standard monitoring."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Maya knew," I said softly, the elevator humming as we ascended. "Three weeks before she died, she called me. She didn't tell me about the affair—she was too ashamed. But she told me she found a notebook with medical terms written in Daniel’s handwriting. Terms like Hypercoagulability and Diethylstilbestrol. She thought he was researching things to help her pregnancy. She didn't realize he was researching how to end it."
The elevator dinged. The doors opened to the private foyer of the penthouse. Daniel was standing there, a glass of scotch in his hand, waiting for Celeste. When he saw me, his glass shattered against the marble floor.
"Get out of my house," he roared.
"I'm not here for you, Daniel," I said, reaching out and snatching the tote bag from Celeste’s grip before she could react. She screamed as I dumped the contents onto the floor.
May you like
Amidst the makeup bags and designer wallets, three encrypted external hard drives slid across the floor, along with a small, amber glass vial labeled with a medical research serial number.
I smiled, though my heart felt like it was breaking all over again. "Found it."
