Chapter 7 - The Threat
Richard wanted Anna and Leo moved immediately.
Anna refused to panic blindly.
“We need police.”
“We need evidence they can act on.”
“We have video of them beside Claire’s car.”
“We have a sentence without context.”
“And a threat.”
Richard rubbed both hands over his face. “You’re right.”
They called Detective Mara Chen, who had handled a financial fraud case involving one of Richard’s companies years earlier. She arrived at the cottage before noon.
Mara watched the staircase backup. Then Claire’s garage video. Then she read the threat.
“This is enough to start asking questions,” she said. “Not enough to arrest Vanessa for Claire’s death.”
Richard’s voice sharpened. “She pushed my son.”
“The footage cuts before the push.”
Anna hated that Mara was right.
“But Leo saw her,” Anna said.
“He’s two.”
“He pointed at the camera.”
“And that matters. But a prosecutor will want more.”
Mara took the flash drive and Claire’s letter for forensic copies.
Then she asked the question Richard had been avoiding.
“Where is Vanessa now?”
No one knew.
Graham’s phone was off.
His accounts were freezing.
Vanessa’s car had been abandoned at a train station.
By late afternoon, Owen found something worse.
Someone had logged into the mansion’s smart-home system remotely and tried to erase all archived footage.
“Could they?” Anna asked.
“Not after I locked the account.”
“Who tried?”
Owen turned his laptop.
The login was under Richard’s credentials.
Richard stared. “I didn’t do that.”
Mara said, “Then they have your password.”
Anna remembered Vanessa standing beside Richard at the security panel countless times.
“She watched him enter it.”
Owen nodded. “Probably.”
Then he frowned.
“There’s another login.”
“From where?”
“The cottage.”
Everyone went still.
Anna looked around the small living room.
“Impossible.”
Owen checked again.
“Not impossible. Someone connected to the Wi-Fi here at 3:11 this morning.”
Mrs. Bell whispered, “We were all asleep.”
Mara stood. “Search the house.”
They found nothing downstairs.
Nothing in the bedrooms.
Nothing in the garage.
Then Anna noticed the attic hatch was slightly open.
Richard pulled it down.
A folding ladder dropped.
Dust drifted into the hallway.
Mara went first.
Thirty seconds later, she called down.
“You need to see this.”
May you like
On the attic floor sat a backpack.
Inside were bottled water, gloves, a burner phone—and printed photographs of Anna, Leo, Richard, and Mrs. Bell sleeping inside the cottage the night before.
