Chapter 12 - The Web UnravelsDetective Vance ordered the guests to be interviewed one by one in the library, while forensic technicians dusted the shattered glass and collected samples of the purple-tinted liquid.
In the private study, Julian pulled his mother, Beatrice, into a corner out of earshot of the police officers guarding the hallway.
"The catering staff," Beatrice whispered frantically, her pearl necklace swaying as her chest heaved. "Did the waiter see who gave him the vial?"
"I used a burner phone and paid him in cash through an anonymous courier," Julian spat quietly, his eyes dark with nervous energy. "He doesn't know my face. But if the cops analyze the liquid, it's the exact same synthetic neuromuscular compound used on Clara!"
"They can't link it to us!" Beatrice gasped, grabbing his arm. "We destroyed all the medical receipts from three years ago!"
"Not all of them," Julian realized, a cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. "The offshore lab in Zurich. I kept the encrypted payment logs on the hard drive in my private safe at the estate office... just in case I needed leverage against you if you ever turned on me."
Beatrice stared at her son in utter disbelief. "You kept a record of your mother's crime?!"
"It doesn't matter!" Julian hissed. "If Detective Vance gets a search warrant for my office computer, we are both going to prison for life. I need to wipe that drive tonight."
May you like
Unbeknownst to them, sitting on the window ledge just outside the study’s cracked ventilation transom was Lily.
She had slipped away from her nanny to search for her grandfather, but hearing their hushed, venomous voices, she had stayed hidden behind the heavy velvet curtains. Every word—the offshore lab, the Zurich account, the encrypted drive—was seared into her young memory.
Related Stories
