Chapter 2 - The Interrogation Room
The interrogation room at the city's central precinct smelled of stale coffee, old paper, and institutional wax. A single overhead fluorescent light hummed softly, casting a harsh glare down onto a scratched metal table.
Victoria Langford sat rigidly on the metal chair, her designer evening gown looking entirely out of place in the sterile, grim environment. Her hands, adorned with heavy diamond rings, were folded tightly in her lap.
The heavy steel door swung open, and Detective Harrison walked in, sliding a manila folder onto the table before taking a seat opposite her.
"Let's not waste each other's time, Victoria," Harrison said, leaning forward and resting his forearms on the table. "We’ve already run the preliminary checks on the serial numbers stamped inside the lining of that leather purse. It was a custom-made Italian import registered exclusively to Clara Vance—Lily's mother."
Victoria tightened her jaw, staring fixedly at the wall behind the detective. "I bought it at a high-end estate sale three months ago. People buy discarded luxury goods all the time. It means nothing."
"An estate sale?" Harrison raised an eyebrow, a cold, skeptical smile touching the corners of his mouth. "That's interesting, because Clara Vance never died. Her estate was never probated. Her assets were frozen by a federal court order two years ago when she vanished during a corporate audit of Langford Logistics—your husband's shipping conglomerate."
Victoria’s composure cracked slightly, a microscopic twitch betraying her panic. "My husband's business has nothing to do with a missing woman."
"Does it?" Harrison opened the folder, sliding a printed document across the metal table. "Two days before Clara Vance disappeared, she sent an encrypted file to an independent financial journalist detailing systemic embezzlement and illegal offshore cargo routing managed by Langford Logistics. The primary beneficiary of those shell accounts wasn't your husband. It was you."
The silence in the room became absolute.
"She was going to expose you, wasn't she?" Harrison whispered, his eyes locking onto hers with unblinking intensity. "She discovered you were using her personal shipping accounts to siphon millions. So you invited her to a private meeting under the guise of corporate mediation. And after that... she walked into the woods and never came home."
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"That is a vicious lie!" Victoria screamed, slamming her hands onto the table and standing up so abruptly her chair scraped loudly against the linoleum. "You have no proof! You have no body, no eyewitnesses, nothing!"
"We didn't," Harrison replied calmly, remaining seated. "Not until tonight, when a brave little girl walked into a ballroom wearing a faded sweater and carrying the one piece of evidence you forgot to burn."
