Chapter 6 - The Interrogation of Daniel
I found Daniel sitting on a green vinyl chair outside the hospital cafeteria, staring at a thick, cream-colored envelope resting in the palm of his hand.
The envelope was addressed to Daniel Pierce, Esq. in sharp, elegant fountain pen script—the same handwriting that had signed birthday cards, legal documents, and now, a suicide note.
When I sat down beside him, he didn't look up.
“Did you read it?” I asked gently.
Daniel slowly slid his thumb under the flap, pulling out a single sheet of heavy ivory paper. He handed it to me without a word.
I read it under the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital hallway:
“Daniel,
If you’re reading this, it means Tessa’s little police friends finally figured out I didn't jump off the cliff. How predictable of her—she always did lack imagination, treating life like an emergency room triage instead of a long game of chess.
You think you’ve won. You think freezing my accounts and calling the Coast Guard makes you a man. But you’re still the same boy who cried when I sold your pony because you didn't score high enough on your entrance exams.
The girl’s face is just a reminder of what happens when you let outsiders into the house. If you want the remaining trust funds—the ones keeping your mortgage paid and your precious medical practice afloat—you’ll drop the charges, sign over custody of Emma to the family board, and divorce the woman who destroyed our name.
You have forty-eight hours before I liquidate the offshore holdings into untraceable crypto and disappear into South America forever.
— Father.”
My fingers clenched around the paper, creasing the thick cardstock down the center.
“He thinks he’s untouchable,” I whispered, my voice shaking with a cold, terrifying calm.
Daniel finally looked up at me. His eyes were bloodshot, dark circles bruising the skin beneath them, but the indecision that had haunted him for twelve years was entirely gone.
“He’s not untouchable,” Daniel said softly.
He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out his smartphone, and unlocked the screen. He tapped the recording app, playing back a phone call that had come in just three minutes before I found him.
A recorded voice crackled through the speaker:
“This is an automated security notification from First National Bank of Greenwich. A wire transfer of $1,500,000 has been successfully initiated from your primary commercial account to an offshore entity in the Bahamas…”
Daniel paused the recording and looked straight into my eyes.
“He didn't realize,” Daniel said, a grim smile touching the corners of his mouth, “that three months ago, when he forced me to sign those estate restructuring papers, I made a few additions of my own.”
“What did you do, Daniel?” I asked.
“I didn't just inherit his business,” Daniel said softly. “I inherited his signature stamp. And while he was busy planning how to ruin our family on Christmas morning, I transferred every single cent of his liquid assets into a federal forfeiture account controlled by Detective Ramos’s task force.”
The letter in my hand suddenly felt very light.
May you like
“He’s broke,” I said.
“Worse than broke,” Daniel replied. “He’s stranded on a rented boat in the freezing Atlantic with no money, no burner phones that work, and a Coast Guard cutter five miles off his starboard bow.”
