Chapter 10 - Shadows in the Kitchen
The sharp clatter of a heavy copper pan hitting the marble tile floor echoed through the expansive, silent ground floor. The lead detective snapped her head toward the dark corridor leading to the kitchen, her hand instantly dropping to the service weapon at her hip.
“Stay here with the medic,” the detective ordered the two nearby patrol officers, drawing her firearm as she moved with swift, silent steps down the hallway.
Maya watched from the foyer, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. The police had secured the perimeter, or so they thought. Every door and window had been locked down the moment the first cruiser arrived. Yet, something—or someone—was still moving through the darkened rooms of the estate.
Moments later, the sound of muffled scuffling drifted from the kitchen, followed by a sharp gasp and the heavy thud of a body hitting the floor.
“Clear! Suspect is down in the pantry!” a male officer’s voice shouted back toward the foyer.
The detective reappeared moments later, dragging a figure out from the hallway shadows. It wasn’t Sarah. It was a middle-aged man in a security guard uniform, his hands zip-tied behind his back, a look of sheer terror plastered across his bruised face.
“Who is this?” the detective demanded, shoving the man down onto the edge of the luxury sofa.
The guard spat a mouthful of blood onto the herringbone floor, his eyes darting frantically around the room before landing on Maya. “I didn’t have a choice!” the guard choked out, gasping for breath. “She hired me three weeks ago to monitor the estate cameras! She said if I ever reported the break-in or let anyone out, my family would pay the price!”
“What break-in?” the detective asked, her voice sharp as glass. “What are you talking about?”
The guard swallowed hard, his chest heaving under the uniform shirt. “There was no accident on the river, Detective. That wasn’t a tragedy. Sarah didn’t just move into this house—she engineered the entire thing from the ground up. She’s been impersonating Maya’s mother using surgical alterations and stolen biometrics for over a month. And she had help from the inside. From Marcus.”
Maya gasped, stumbling backward until her legs hit the edge of the coffee table. Her father—the man bleeding on the stretcher outside—hadn’t been a victim of Sarah’s scheme. He had been an active partner in erasing her mother.
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And as the guard whispered his final, horrifying revelation, the front doors of the estate suddenly swung wide open again, revealing a figure standing in the flashing red and blue lights.
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