Chapter 4
David Vance strode into the ballroom with the brisk, purposeful energy of a man accustomed to controlling high-stakes negotiations. Dressed in a tailored charcoal suit that matched his serious demeanor, he bypassed the cluster of shocked relatives and walked straight toward Clara and little Lily. He cast a brief, protective glance down at his niece, noting the bruised arm with a jaw-clench that teold Clara he was already calculating the legal damages.
“Clara. Lily,” David said, his voice low and steady. He then turned his sharp gaze toward Julian, who was nervously gripping the black smartphone. “Julian. I hear you’ve been busy playing detective tonight.”
Julian attempted a weak smile, though his eyes darted toward the exit doors. “David, thank goodness. You need to talk some sense into your sister. She’s accusing me of... of framing her daughter, when in reality, I just recovered stolen property from the girl’s jacket.”
David didn’t smile. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a sleek tablet device, tapping the screen twice. A crisp digital interface lit up his face.
“Property recovery usually involves handing items over to hotel security or law enforcement immediately, Julian,” David said evenly. “Not tucking them away, retrieving them with an audience, and making a theatrical display designed to humiliate a six-year-old child.”
“I was protecting the family’s interests!” Julian protested, his voice rising in panic. “The sapphire ring—”
“—was found in the fountain planter near the terrace twenty minutes ago by the head bartender, completely undamaged,” David interrupted smoothly, holding up his tablet so the screen faced the room. “Along with your secondary burner phone, which was logged into the hotel’s administrative Wi-Fi network at the exact time the security bypass codes were entered into the main terminal.”
The silence in the ballroom became absolute. Julian stared at the tablet screen as if it were a venomous snake. The color drained entirely from his face, leaving his skin a sickly, ashen gray. His fingers twitched around his primary smartphone, the device he had used to orchestrate the frame-up.
“That’s circumstantial,” Julian muttered, taking another instinctive step backward toward the French doors that led to the darkened garden terrace. “Anyone could spoof a network IP address.”
“True,” David agreed, his tone deceptively casual. “Which is why we didn’t rely solely on network logs. We pulled the high-definition architectural feed from the wall camera directly above you. The one that recorded every single second of your little magic trick.”
May you like
David tapped the tablet screen again, and a video playback window appeared. High-definition footage began to play, clearly showing Julian sliding the smartphone into Clara’s jacket pocket while Lily was distracted, then pulling it back out with a theatrical smirk just moments later.
Julian’s eyes widened in sheer terror. The game was up, and the trap had snapped shut.
