Chapter 5 - WHY EMILY WAS CHOSEN
The video changed everything.
Police classified the case as more than attempted framing.
There was conspiracy.
Fraud.
Threats.
Potential corporate theft.
But one question remained.
Why Emily?
Daniel examined the flash drive.
“This was hidden in your jacket.”
Emily nodded.
“But I didn’t put it there.”
Richard looked toward Rosa.
“Did anyone visit your apartment recently?”
Rosa shook her head.
Then Emily remembered a former employee.
“Thomas.”
Richard frowned.
“Thomas Reed?”
Emily nodded.
Thomas had worked as Richard’s personal driver for seven years.
He had disappeared three weeks earlier.
Everyone assumed he had quit.
But Emily remembered the last time she saw him.
He had bumped into her near the laundry room.
He apologized.
Then helped her pick up her cleaning supplies.
She had been wearing that jacket.
Daniel immediately searched Thomas’s records.
His phone had been disconnected.
His apartment was empty.
His bank account hadn’t been touched in eighteen days.
Nathan stared at the screen.
“He knew.”
Richard nodded.
“And he hid the evidence with Emily.”
“Why her?”
Emily answered quietly.
“Because nobody searches the housekeeper.”
Silence.
The irony was brutal.
Vanessa had framed Emily because she believed a maid was disposable.
Thomas had trusted Emily because he knew people like Vanessa barely saw her.
Richard looked ashamed.
“We should have noticed.”
Emily met his eyes.
“People notice what they think matters.”
Richard had no response.
Daniel copied the files.
The evidence revealed Marcus had spent almost a year creating fake companies.
Money was being moved through construction contracts.
Several signatures appeared to belong to Nathan.
They were forged.
But the most disturbing document was dated two months earlier.
A life insurance policy.
Nathan Caldwell.
Twenty-five million dollars.
Beneficiary after marriage.
Vanessa.
Nathan stared at it.
“She wanted me dead.”
Nobody said it.
Nobody needed to.
Then Daniel found something else.
A scheduled transfer.
Thirty million dollars.
From a Caldwell corporate account.
Execution date.
The day after the wedding.
Richard whispered, “They weren’t planning to wait.”
Emily looked at Nathan.
His face was emotionless.
That frightened her more than anger would have.
“What happens now?”
Daniel answered.
“We find them.”
But Marcus and Vanessa were already moving.
At 3:14 that morning, a security alarm sounded.
Everyone ran toward the monitor.
Smoke.
The east wing.
Richard’s office.
Daniel shouted, “Fire!”
Flames spread across the hallway.
Emily smelled gasoline.
This wasn’t an electrical accident.
Someone had entered the mansion.
Someone had come back for the evidence.
May you like
And when Daniel checked the garage camera, he saw Vanessa standing beside the burning east wing.
Smiling.
