Chapter 4 - The Captured Moment
Audrey stood in the rain, the horror of the situation washing over her, but beneath it, a cold, hard resolve began to crystallize. If the Feds were here, that meant the Miami server logs were already being intercepted.
"Is he being detained?" she asked.
"As we speak," the agent replied.
Audrey felt a strange sense of vindication. She walked toward the front door, stepping past the yellow crime scene tape.
"Wait," the agent shouted, but she ignored him.
She walked into the foyer, the air smelling of ozone and disturbed dust. She reached into her pocket, pulled out her phone, and opened her security app. The code she had been trying to punch in earlier? It hadn't been an error. The system had been bypassed by the federal override.
She pulled up the most recent recording.
The screen showed Colin, just hours before he left for Florida. He was talking to his mother, Marjorie.
“She’s going to realize the house is in her name, Colin. She’s going to sell it,” Marjorie’s voice crackled through the phone speakers.
“Let her,” Colin had replied, his face twisted in a sneer of pure, unadulterated malice. “If she sells it, she’s signing a document that lists all the 'hidden upgrades' I made to the foundation—the ones that house the hardware. She’ll be the one legally responsible for the infrastructure of the laundering operation when the Feds arrive. By the time they find the servers, she’ll be in a cell in North Carolina, and I’ll be sitting on the Caymans account.”
Audrey dropped her phone. The agent picked it up, watching the video. His eyes turned dark.
"He planned to frame you," the agent said, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"He did," Audrey said. She looked at the house—the limestone, the brass, the life she had built. It was all gone. It was a tomb for a life that had been a lie.
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"You're not going to jail, Ms. Vance," the agent said, handing the phone back. "But you're going to have to testify. And you're going to have to tell us everything you know about his finances."
"I know everything," Audrey said, her gaze fixed on the spot where the Prescott portraits had replaced her own. "I’m the one who built the company he tried to steal."
