Chapter 10 - The Interrogation In The Kitchen And The Missing Partner
The bright overhead lights of the kitchen beat down mercilessly on the tile floor as the police sergeant stood directly in front of Arthur. The junior officer flanked the doorway, blocking any potential exit, though Arthur looked far too exhausted to run anywhere. His black tuxedo jacket was torn at the elbow, his bow tie was gone, and the sharp corporate confidence that had defined his career was entirely gone.
"Let's start from the top, Mr. Sterling," the sergeant said, pulling a small notepad and pen from his breast pocket. "Your dispatcher notes indicated an intruder. My officer found signs of a scuffled flowerpot on your back patio. But when we ran the plates on the wallet left behind in the mulch, it didn't belong to a random street criminal."
Arthur swallowed hard, his throat dry as sandpaper. "It... it belonged to Marcus Vance. My business partner."
"Your former business partner," the sergeant corrected sharply, tapping his pen against the notepad. "Because according to our database, Mr. Vance’s vehicle was flagged speeding away from the corporate offices downtown approximately twenty minutes before your home security system went offline. Care to explain why your partner was burglarizing your office while you were staging a shattered picture frame in your foyer?"
Elena stepped out from the kitchen island, holding the matte-black micro USB flash drive out between two fingers as if it were radioactive. She didn't look at Arthur; she handed the tiny device directly to the sergeant.
"You might want to plug this into your secure terminal, Officer," Elena said, her voice completely devoid of emotion. "My husband taped it to the back of our family portrait before he smashed it on the floor. It contains the encrypted offshore data files that Marcus Vance was trying to extract from our home safe tonight."
The sergeant looked down at the flash drive in her palm, his eyes narrowing. He carefully took the device, placing it into a small evidence bag he retrieved from his belt. "Is this true, Mr. Sterling? You were hoarding corporate data at your residence?"
"I was protecting it!" Arthur finally snapped, his voice breaking as frustration briefly pierced his defeat. "Vance and the board were trying to strip the company of its intellectual property. If I didn't secure those drives, they would have locked me out of my own startup by Monday morning!"
"By framing your own daughter and orchestrating a fake robbery?" the sergeant asked incredulously, shaking his head. "That's not protecting assets, Mr. Sterling. That's conspiracy and obstruction of justice."
Before Arthur could formulate a defense, a loud, urgent chime rang out from the smart-home terminal in the hallway. The screen flashed a bright warning red, overriding the paused video file. A new notification popped up in bold white letters: External Network Breach – Master Safe Accessed Remotely.
Elena gasped, spinning around to look at the hallway display. "How is that possible? The network was locked!"
"It wasn't locked from here," Evelyn said quietly, her voice cutting through the sudden panic like a knife. She turned her sharp blue eyes toward Arthur. "Your partner didn't need to break into the house tonight to get what he wanted, did he, Arthur? The physical safe was just a distraction."
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Arthur stared at the flashing red screen, his face turning an ash-gray color. He sank slowly onto a kitchen chair, burying his face in his hands as the full, devastating reality of Marcus Vance’s ultimate betrayal crashed down upon him.
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