Chapter 9
The black sedan pulled up the gravel driveway of the Vance estate just as a light winter rain began to fall, slicking the dark pavement and turning the grand facade into a moody tableau of gothic shadows. Marcus helped Julianne out of the car, handing her the crutches with practiced efficiency. She swung herself forward with surprising agility, her face set in a mask of grim determination.
Inside, the house was dark, the police having completed their initial sweep and sealed the main foyer with yellow tape. But Marcus had the override codes for the security system. He bypassed the front door alarm, entering his master administrative pin into the keypad beside the heavy double doors.
"The server room is in the basement," Marcus said, locking the heavy oak door behind them. "If Miller gets a warrant for the local hard drives, we have less than an hour before his cyber unit arrives."
"We aren't just backing up the files, Marcus," Julianne said as she hopped skillfully down the first three steps of the grand staircase, avoiding the landing where she had staged her fall earlier that evening. "We are going to delete the master partition. If the primary evidence of the argument disappears from the gold frame camera, the assault charge collapses entirely."
They moved through the darkened hallway toward the rear service stairs that led down to the utility cellar. The atmosphere in the old house felt oppressive, the walls seemingly closing in around them as the rain beat a steady tattoo against the stained-glass windows overhead.
As they reached the basement door, a shadow detached itself from the dim lighting of the hallway.
Detective Miller stepped out from the doorway of the walk-in pantry, holding a small digital tablet in one hand and his service weapon holstered at his hip. He wasn't alone; two cyber-crime specialists in dark windbreakers flanked him, carrying diagnostic equipment bags.
"Looking for the master partition, Ms. Hayes?" Miller asked, his voice echoing smoothly off the stone walls of the cellar entrance.
Julianne froze, her knuckles turning white against the foam grips of her crutches. Marcus instinctively took a half-step back, his hand twitching toward his breast pocket where his smartphone rested.
"Detective," Marcus said, forcing a calm smile that didn't reach his eyes. "We were under the impression the premises were sealed pending formal investigation."
"They were," Miller replied, stepping closer until he stood directly under the flickering overhead bulb. "Until my team accessed the cloud backup server from the precinct fifteen minutes ago. It turns out the camera in the gold frame doesn't just stream locally to the basement. It uploads in real-time to an encrypted server hosted by a shell corporation registered under your name, Mr. Sterling."
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Julianne’s jaw tightened, her gaze darting toward the basement stairs as if calculating the distance to the service exit. "You have no right to access private corporate data without a federal subpoena."
"We secured the federal subpoena twenty minutes ago, courtesy of a very cooperative judge who didn't appreciate being lied to about international wire fraud," Miller said. He gestured to the specialists behind him, who moved past Marcus and Julianne toward the server door. "And as for the assault charge against your sister? Well, frame forty-two wasn't the only thing recorded by that clever little painting."
