Chapter 6 - The Investigation
The police station was a cold, fluorescent-lit purgatory. Elias sat in a plastic chair, his hands still trembling. Elena paced the hallway, her mind racing. She knew her father was incapable of theft, but she also knew how the system worked. Beatrice had money, influence, and a history of being the 'upstanding' victim.
"We need proof," Elena told Marcus. They were sitting in a parked car, the city lights blurring outside the window.
"She’s too smart to leave digital footprints," Marcus said, rubbing his temples. "She works in cash, in favors, and in social capital."
"But she’s arrogant," Elena countered. "She thinks no one is looking at her. She thinks she’s untouchable."
They spent the next forty-eight hours in a frantic race against time. Elena accessed the household security logs—the ones Beatrice thought were only accessible by her personal security team. She bypassed the encrypted firewalls, a skill she had learned long ago to protect herself from her mother-in-law’s prying eyes.
She found the footage. It was grainy, captured from a hidden camera in the sunroom that Beatrice hadn't known existed—a relic of the home’s previous security upgrades.
The video played on Elena’s laptop, the sound of the rain against the car roof providing a somber backdrop. It showed Beatrice entering the sunroom, looking around with a predatory smirk, and then performing the fluid, practiced motion of sliding the brooch into the bag. It was damning. It was definitive.
May you like
But as Elena continued watching, she noticed something else. Beatrice didn't just plant the brooch. She looked into the camera—as if she knew it was there—and whispered something to herself, followed by a wicked, triumphant laugh. She had known the camera was there, and she had planted the evidence anyway, betting that her word would outweigh a grainy video.
"She’s not just trying to frame him," Elena realized, horror dawning on her. "She’s trying to goad us. She wants us to fight her in court so she can drag our names through the mud, bankrupt us with legal fees, and make sure we never talk about the embezzlement."
