Chapter 6 - The Unraveling
I needed an ally who didn't play by the rules of the local legal establishment. I reached out to a woman I’d met years ago during a corporate retreat—Maya, a former intelligence analyst who now worked as a private forensic consultant.
We met in a crowded, noisy diner on the edge of town, far from the eyes of anyone who might be watching. I handed her a thumb drive containing everything I’d found on Derek’s laptop.
"He’s using encrypted nodes to route his communications," Maya noted after only a few minutes of scrolling through the data. "But he’s arrogant. He kept a secondary ledger. Most people do. They think they’re the exception to the rule of digital footprinting."
"Can you find the ‘Asset Extraction’ funding source?" I asked.
Maya’s eyes narrowed. "I can, but it’s dangerous, Elena. If I ping these servers, they’ll know someone is looking. You have to be ready for them to push back—hard."
"They’ve already pushed," I said, thinking of Constance’s visit. "They’re going after my past, my family’s health records, anything they can use to label me as 'unstable.' I need to hit them where they can't recover."
Over the next week, Maya and I worked in the shadows. We discovered that Constance hadn't just been funding Derek; she had been embezzling from the very family trust she was using to "protect" her grandchildren. The money funding the harassment and the kidnapping wasn't theirs—it was stolen from the estate that was supposed to be left to Lily and Toby.
The drama took a turn when I received an anonymous text: Stop looking, or you won't see them again.
I panicked. I rushed to the school to pick up the children early, but when I arrived, the secretary looked confused. "Mrs. Parker? You already checked them out twenty minutes ago."
May you like
The air left my lungs. I hadn't been to the school.
I spun around, my heart screeching in my chest, and saw a black sedan idling at the curb. The same sedan from the warehouse. I sprinted toward the parking lot, screaming for help, as the car pulled away with a screech of tires. I jumped into my own car and followed, fueled by a primal, terrifying rage.
