Chapter 5
Detective Miller flipped open the folder, revealing a printed photograph of the kitchen taken from a slightly different angle than the security feed. "Your wife’s friend paints a very complicated picture, Mr. Vance," Miller said, his voice measured and devoid of personal warmth. "She claims there was a financial dispute involving a substantial real estate trust. According to Ms. Hart, Cali was planning to sever financial ties with your firm by midnight tonight." Marcus stared at the photograph, noting the faint reflection of a second set of keys resting on the counter—keys that didn't belong to him or Cali. A cold realization began to take root in his mind; Elena had not just dropped by for a social call. She had come to collect an asset, by force if necessary.
Marcus denied the allegation firmly, explaining that Cali had no independent financial stake outside their joint holdings, but the detective’s skeptical expression made it clear that the police were exploring every possible motive. When Miller asked about the missing fifteen minutes of security footage, Marcus lied smoothly, claiming the system frequently experienced buffering issues due to local network congestion. The detective narrowed his eyes, clearly unconvinced, before warning Marcus not to contact Elena or attempt to access the property’s cloud server again until the official forensic audit was complete. As Miller turned and walked back out to his cruiser, Marcus realized he was being systematically boxed into a corner.
Returning to the kitchen, Marcus stared up at the blinking red light. If the police discovered the tampered files, they would immediately suspect him or Cali of destroying evidence to hide a premeditated financial crime. He needed to find the original unedited file before the internal backup synced with the off-site cloud storage at midnight. He pulled out his laptop, connected to the local router, and initiated a deep-sector recovery scan on the hard drive. Lines of green code cascaded down the screen as the utility searched the deleted sectors, finally unearthing a hidden cache containing the audio track from the missing minutes—a raw, uncompressed recording of voices arguing fiercely over a signature on a dotted line.
