Chapter 4 - The House of Cards
The chaos in the parlor was absolute. While Elizabeth slumped unconscious against the sofa, Elena calmly signaled for a medical tech to check her vitals, refusing to let the fainting spell disrupt the investigation for even a second.
“Get him up,” Elena ordered the operative pinning Caleb.
The guard hauled Caleb up by the collar of his expensive tailored shirt, shoving him roughly into the nearby armchair. Caleb’s nose was scraped raw, and a thin line of blood ran down his upper lip, ruining his polished, untouchable image. He looked less like a corporate executive and more like a cornered animal caught in a snare.
“You’re making a mistake,” Caleb panted, wiping his bloody nose with the back of his hand, though his eyes darted frantically around the room, searching for an escape route that no longer existed. “That watch... I lost that weeks ago! At the club, or downtown. Anyone could have picked it up!”
“Right,” Daniel said, leaning down until his face was inches from his brother’s. “And I suppose anyone could have broken into my wife’s room while I was deployed, threatened her, and staged a fake childbirth emergency while I was halfway across the world.”
Caleb flinched, looking away. “I don't know what you’re talking about.”
“Enough games,” Elena interrupted, stepping between them with a sleek black evidence bag containing the watch fragment. She tapped her tablet screen, bringing up a live feed from a drone her team had deployed outside the perimeter. “Captain, you might want to look at this. My tech unit just accessed the estate’s external security hard drive. We bypassed the local router.”
Daniel straightened up, walking over to Elena’s side. On the tablet screen, infrared thermal footage showed a hidden subterranean access tunnel leading from the basement wine cellar straight out to the old carriage house near the edge of the property line.
“What is that?” Daniel asked.
“An escape route,” Elena said grimly. “Or a transfer tunnel. Look at the timestamps. Forty-eight hours ago—the exact night your wife supposedly died of natural complications in the master suite—there’s thermal movement in this tunnel. Two individuals carrying a heavy, static load from the main house toward the carriage house.”
Daniel’s blood ran cold. They hadn't just staged her death upstairs. They had moved her body—or worse, what happened to her—through the bowels of this corrupt estate while pretending to mourn her in the light of day.
“Caleb,” Daniel said, his voice terrifyingly calm as he turned back toward his brother. “Where is my son?”
Caleb swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. “He’s... he’s upstairs in the nursery. With the nanny. We didn't touch the baby, Daniel, I swear to God—”
“Upstairs!” a sharp voice shouted over the radio clipped to the lead operative’s tactical vest.
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“Team Two, report!” the operative barked into his shoulder mic, spinning around. “What’s your status on the second floor?”
A burst of heavy static hissed through the receiver, followed by the breathless, frantic voice of the secondary search team leader: “We’ve secured the master nursery! The baby is safe—repeat, the infant is alive and secured in his crib! But the nanny... the nanny just tried to jump out the second-story window with a duffel bag full of bearer bonds and passport documents! We’ve got her detained, but you need to see what else is in that room right now!”
