Chapter 6
I did not sleep after that.
Marcus wanted me to leave.
Daniel wanted me in a hotel.
The investigator wanted every camera checked before anyone touched anything.
I wanted answers.
By noon, technicians found three hidden devices.
One in the bedroom vent.
One in my office lamp.
One behind a painting in the hallway.
None of them were mine.
The bedroom camera I used had been installed for security after a break-in scare.
Julian had called me paranoid.
Meanwhile, he had been filming me.
The investigator, Leah Monroe, placed the devices in evidence bags.
“These aren’t cheap,” she said.
“Can you trace them?”
“Maybe. But whoever installed them knew the house.”
Marcus looked furious.
“Julian?”
“Or Eleanor,” I said.
Leah’s phone rang.
She answered, listened, and looked at me.
“The laptop is encrypted. Police techs are requesting a warrant expansion.”
Daniel arrived ten minutes later with bad news.
“The bank found another loan application.”
“In my name?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Two million.”
I laughed.
Because crying felt too small.
“The house isn’t worth that much.”
“The collateral isn’t just the house.”
He placed a document in front of me.
My father’s lake property.
The cabin he left to me and Marcus.
I stopped breathing.
“No.”
Marcus grabbed the paper.
“How did they get this?”
Daniel’s mouth tightened.
“Your signature appears notarized.”
“My signature is forged.”
“I know.”
Marcus turned pale.
“Khloe, Dad’s cabin.”
I remembered Dad teaching us to fish there.
Mom laughing on the porch before she got sick.
The last place that still felt like our childhood.
My phone rang.
Eleanor.
I answered on speaker.
Her voice was calm.
“Now that you’ve had your little performance, we need to talk.”
“No.”
“You embarrassed my son.”
“He embarrassed himself.”
“You don’t understand. The cabin was always the point.”
My blood went cold.
“What?”
May you like
She paused.
Then said, “Ask your father what he buried there.”
