Chapter 5 - The Harbor Bridge
The damp salt air of the harbor bit into Clara’s skin as she stood behind the police barricade, wrapped in a borrowed patrol jacket over her wedding gown. The flashing red and blue lights of half a dozen cruiser cars painted the dark waters of the bay in violent strokes. Below the massive steel expanse of the harbor bridge, searchlights cut through the rolling fog, sweeping across the dark, churning currents where the tide was rushing out toward the open ocean.
Officer Miller walked up beside her, holding a transparent evidence bag containing a sleek, silver smartphone. "We found his phone on the passenger seat, Mrs. Sterling. The engine was still warm. But there's no sign of Marcus."
Clara stared down at the dark water, the distant city skyline glittering like a row of indifferent diamonds. "He didn't jump," she said quietly, her voice steady despite the freezing wind. "Marcus isn't the type to take his own life. He's too cowardly, and far too greedy."
"We're treating it as a suspicious disappearance," Miller replied, shining his flashlight toward the bridge’s pedestrian walkway. "Or an extraction. If he had a second passport and a boat waiting underneath the pier, he could already be past international waters."
Julian was seated in the back of a nearby squad car, his face pressed against the glass, watching them with wide, manic eyes. The realization that his coconspirator had abandoned him to take the full weight of a multi-million-dollar federal indictment had finally shattered his arrogant facade. He was sobbing quietly, his expensive tuxedo wrinkled and stained with his own blood.
Clara turned away from the patrol car, unable to look at him any longer. The pity she thought she might feel had been completely burned away, replaced by a cold, sharp resolve. "He left a paper trail, didn't he?" she asked Miller. "Marcus was arrogant. He never did anything without backing up his files to a cloud server."
"Three different servers," Miller nodded, pulling a small notepad from his pocket. "And according to the automated ping logs, his primary backup synced just twelve minutes ago—from a private IP address registered to an empty warehouse down at the old shipping docks."
Clara’s eyes narrowed as she looked toward the sprawling, industrial silhouette of the abandoned warehouses lining the eastern harbor. "The old shipping docks. My father's company used to own those before Julian convinced me to sell them off to a shell company last year."
Miller paused, lowering his pen. "You think Marcus went back there?"
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"I know he did," Clara said, turning toward her car. "Because that’s where my father kept his private ledger—the one document that proves Julian didn't just forge a signature, but murdered my father to get it."
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