Chapter 5 - Midnight Visitors
The sharp chime of the front doorbell pierced the heavy silence of the estate, sounding less like a greeting and more like a judicial summons. Clara flinched as if struck by physical lightning, her eyes darting frantically toward the glass doors of the conservatory.
"Are you expecting guests at this hour, Clara?" Jonathan asked mildly, though his dark eyes held no humor. He slipped his hands into his pockets, turning to face the entryway with chilling composure.
"It’s... it must be the delivery service," Clara stammered, smoothing down the wrinkles of her vibrant red dress with trembling fingers. Her voice lacked all of its previous authority. "I ordered new linens for the guest suite."
"At midnight? In the middle of an active investigation?" Jonathan arched a single eyebrow, taking a slow step toward the exit. "Let’s go see who brought such punctual customer service."
Before Jonathan could reach the glass doors, they slid open with a soft hiss. Two men in dark trench coats stepped into the conservatory. Their badges caught the cool blue light of the security monitor, which was still looping the incriminating footage of Clara towering over a weeping Evelyn.
The taller detective, a weathered man with sharp gray eyes and a heavy notebook in his hand, stepped past Jonathan and locked his gaze entirely on Clara.
"Mrs. Clara Vance?" the detective asked, his voice flat and authoritative.
Clara pressed her back against the glass wall of the greenhouse, her breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. "You have no right to be here without a warrant. This is private property!"
"Detective Miller, Manhattan Precinct," the officer stated, flashing a laminated document briefly before sliding it back into his coat. "We received an anonymous tip—backed by rather compelling digital evidence—regarding the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Eleanor Vance three months ago."
Jonathan remained silent, standing a few paces away like a silent executioner watching the final act of a tragedy. He did not look at Clara with rage anymore; his expression was completely empty, a deadness that frightened Clara far more than anger ever could.
"Jonathan, tell them!" Clara shrieked, her voice cracking as she pointed a shaking finger at her husband. "Tell them this is a sick joke! You know I loved Eleanor like a sister!"
"My wife Eleanor died of a broken neck at the base of our grand staircase," Jonathan said, his voice cutting through her hysterics like a scalpel. "An accident, the coroner ruled. But as Detective Miller is about to discover, the security feed from the upper landing was mysteriously disabled for precisely forty-two minutes on the night she fell."
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Detective Miller flipped open his notebook, pulling out a printed photograph of the stairwell wiring. "And our cyber-forensics team just recovered the override logs, Mrs. Vance. The IP address used to disable that security feed originates from the tablet registered to your personal email."
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