Chapter 6 - The Digital Web
The bedroom became an airless box.
Daniel stood between me and the only exit. His posture was stiff, his jaw tight, his hands resting casually inside his slacks pockets. But I noticed the twitch in his neck, the shallow rise and fall of his chest. He was running on adrenaline and fear.
"You really don't know when to surrender, do you, Claire?" he asked, his voice low, almost intimate. "You were supposed to be at the hospital. You were supposed to let Dr. Arthur handle the medications. We could have made this quiet. An insurance settlement, an accidental death, a tragic loss that brought us closer together."
"You pushed her," I said. I didn't yell. I kept my voice at a flat, clinical register, watching his micro-expressions. "Her skull struck the brass mooring cleat on slip two. She died before she hit the water, Daniel. The diatoms in her lungs proved it. The bone compression proved it."
Daniel’s eyelids fluttered—a classic involuntary stress reaction. "You think you’re so smart with your forensic degrees and your government badges. You’ve been looking down at me since the day we met. 'Daniel the developer, Daniel the glad-handing real estate guy.' You never looked at the books, did you?"
"I know about the Swiss transfer," I said. "Eighteen million dollars from the conservatorship. You and Victoria."
Daniel let out a short, bitter laugh. "Victoria is practical. She understands that when an empire falls, you take the gold before the gates collapse. Evelyn’s political career is finished. The state ethics committee has subpoenas ready for her entire portfolio. In thirty days, every asset with the Ward name on it will be frozen. I wasn't going down with her ship."
"So you decided to steal my daughter’s trust fund and run."
"It was *my* company!" he snarled, taking two aggressive steps forward, invading my space. The civilized facade shattered completely. "I built Blackwood Lake! I dredged the harbor! I paid off the zoning commissioners! Your father sat on that land for fifty years doing nothing, and you expected me to let it sit there while the banks foreclosed on my life?"
"And Lily?" I asked, my voice trembling with the effort to keep from tearing his throat out. "What was she, Daniel? A line item on your balance sheet?"
Daniel’s face darkened. A cold, ugly sneer curled his lips. "She was a spoiled, bratty five-year-old who wouldn't shut her mouth. I told her to sit down. I told her to stop crying. She kicked me, Claire! She scratched my arm and ran toward the dock, yelling that she was going to call you! What was I supposed to do? Let her put me in a state penitentiary for twenty years because of a phone call?"
"She was a child!" I screamed, the sea wall inside me breaking. "She was my baby!"
"And she’s gone!" Daniel hissed, lunging forward.
His hand clamped onto my collar, shoving me violently backward against the wall. The back of my head struck the drywall, sending a white-hot flash of pain through my skull. His face was inches from mine, his breath smelling of bourbon and mints.
"The bear is gone, Claire. My mother’s people took care of the evidence at the state lab. The judge threw out your warrant. By noon, Lily’s body will be at the private crematory in Oakridge, and by tomorrow morning, there won't be a single cell left of her to test. You have nothing. No files, no body, no money. You’re just a crazy, broken woman who lost her child and couldn't accept the accident."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, pre-loaded glass syringe with a plastic safety cap.
"Dr. Arthur was kind enough to provide this," Daniel whispered, his fingers tightening on my throat, choking off my air. "A therapeutic dose of midazolam. You’re going to have an acute nervous breakdown, Claire. The deputy will hear me shouting for help. He’ll find you hysterical, holding a weapon, completely out of your mind with grief. And when you wake up in the state psychiatric facility, everything you own will belong to Blackwood Marine Holdings."
My vision tunneled. The dark edges of unconsciousness crept into my peripheral view.
*He’s going to kill me in my daughter’s bedroom,* the thought roared through my mind. *Just like he killed her.*
I didn't panic. Panic was for victims.
My right hand dropped smoothly to the inside of my boot.
I didn't pull a weapon. I pulled out Mark’s heavy gold signet ring, slipping it onto my middle finger, turning the heavy, squared signet stone toward my palm.
With all the leverage in my hips, I brought my right hand up in a vicious, short-range palm strike directly into Daniel’s nose.
*CRACK.*
The solid gold signet drove into the bridge of his nasal bone. The cartilage shattered with a sound like snapping celery.
Daniel shrieked in agony, his grip tearing free from my throat. Blood exploded from his nose, splattering across his pale face and the lavender wallpaper. He stumbled backward, dropping the syringe, clutching his ruined face with both hands.
"You bitch!" he howled, falling to his knees. "You broke my nose!"
I didn't hesitate. I kicked the syringe under the low dresser, stepped over him, and grabbed Lily’s heavy oak desk lamp by its brass base. I swung it down with surgical precision, striking the radial nerve in his right arm. His arm went limp with a sickening thud.
Before he could recover, I reached into my inner jacket pocket, pulled out my smartphone, and tapped the screen.
The screen was already green. The call had been connected for twelve minutes.
Elena’s voice blasted from the speakerphone, loud, clear, and vibrating with rage: *"Uniforms are breaching the front door right now, Daniel. I hope you enjoyed your confession, you miserable piece of shit."*
The sound of wood splintering echoed from downstairs as the tactical team breached the front foyer.
Daniel looked up from the bloody carpet, his eyes wide with absolute horror. "No... no, the deputy..."
"Deputy Miller isn't outside, Daniel," I whispered, wiping a smear of his blood from my cheek. "Deputy Miller works for the state attorney's internal affairs bureau. Elena flipped him three hours ago after we pulled his off-the-books bank deposits from Evelyn."
Boots pounded up the glass staircase. Four heavily armed state troopers poured into the room, their assault rifles leveled at Daniel’s chest.
"On the ground! Face down! Hands behind your head! MOVE!"
Daniel collapsed onto the floor, weeping and groaning as the zip-ties cut into his wrists.
Elena walked in behind the troopers, her face grim. She looked at Daniel, then at me. "Are you alright?"
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"Get the warrant for Oakridge Crematory," I said, my voice cold as iron. "Now."
***
