Chapter 7 - The Case Against DanielBy sunset, Daniel was no longer simply Kate’s father.
He was a suspect.
Police executed a search warrant on the lake house.
Kate was not there.
But her fingerprints were.
So were Daniel’s.
“They’re my fingerprints because it used to belong to Emily.”
Maya nodded.
“I know.”
But others would not.
Inside a bedroom, investigators found photographs of Kate sleeping.
A bottle of prescription sedatives.
And a handwritten note.
DAD SAID I HAVE TO STAY HERE UNTIL I LEARN.
Daniel stared at it.
“That isn’t Kate’s handwriting.”
A document examiner would determine that.
But the room contained something worse.
A sweater belonging to Daniel.
And a company access card registered in his name.
Marcus had been building a story.
Daniel was a grieving father with a history of insomnia.
He had missed board meetings.
He had shouted at reporters.
He had once punched a private investigator who accused Kate of running away voluntarily.
Now evidence linked him to two locations where Kate had been held.
Maya closed the evidence file.
“This is manufactured.”
“How do you know?”
“Because whoever planted it tried too hard.”
Daniel looked at her.
“The sedatives were prescribed to you after Emily died.”
“Yes.”
“You stopped taking them years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Someone kept the bottle.”
Vanessa.
Daniel remembered her cleaning out old bathroom cabinets when she moved in.
“She could have taken it.”
“Or Marcus.”
Daniel rubbed his eyes.
Maya placed another document down.
“We subpoenaed Marcus’s phone records.”
“And?”
“He contacted Vanessa constantly.”
Daniel waited.
“But during the twenty-three days Kate was in the hidden room, Marcus also called someone else repeatedly.”
“Grant?”
“No.”
Maya showed him the number.
It belonged to Aaron Price.
The mansion’s technology manager.
The person who controlled the security cameras.
Daniel felt his stomach tighten.
Aaron had worked for him for eight years.
He had attended Emily’s funeral.
Kate called him Uncle Aaron.
“Bring him in.”
“He’s gone.”
“Of course he is.”
“His apartment was cleared this morning.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“How many people in my house betrayed us?”
Maya did not answer.
Instead, she slid over a photograph recovered from Aaron’s office.
It showed the mansion’s network map.
The pool cameras.
The old intercom.
The east corridor.
And a second network node Daniel had never seen.
Located beneath the greenhouse.
“What is that?”
“We were hoping you knew.”
Daniel shook his head.
The greenhouse stood behind the mansion gardens.
Emily had built it for Kate when she was five.
After Emily died, Daniel rarely entered.
They searched it that night.
The glass structure smelled of wet earth.
Most plants had died because the family gardeners had been told the building was under renovation.
Daniel had not issued that order.
An officer moved a potting table.
Beneath it lay a trapdoor.
Daniel stared at Maya.
They opened it.
Concrete steps led underground.
At the bottom was a narrow maintenance tunnel.
Old estate plans showed no tunnel because the mansion had been rebuilt over an older property.
Daniel walked behind officers until the passage reached a locked steel door.
They forced it.
Inside sat computer equipment.
Monitors.
Hard drives.
Boxes of files.
A surveillance station.
Someone had been watching the mansion from beneath its gardens.
Maya stared at the screens.
One monitor still displayed archived camera images.
Daniel sleeping.
Daniel arguing with Vanessa.
Daniel drinking alone after Kate disappeared.
Daniel standing at Kate’s bedroom door.
Every moment of grief catalogued.
Manufactured into evidence of instability.
Then Daniel noticed another file.
A folder labeled D.M. MEDICAL.
Inside were copies of his therapy notes.
Private notes.
Someone had accessed his psychiatrist’s patient portal.
“This wasn’t just about stealing money,” Maya said.
“No.”
Daniel looked at the wall of surveillance.
“They were constructing a version of me.”
“A version that could lose control of the company.”
Daniel turned.
One screen was still active.
A red notification blinked.
REMOTE CONNECTION ESTABLISHED.
Someone was inside the system right now.
Maya shouted for the cybercrime officer.
The screen went black.
Then white text appeared.
YOU’RE STILL LOOKING IN THE WRONG HOUSE.
Below it appeared a photograph.
Kate.
Alive.
Holding that morning’s newspaper.
Daniel stumbled toward the screen.
And behind Kate in the photograph was something he recognized.
May you like
A brass bell.
The old bell from Emily’s childhood chapel.
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