Chapter 4 - The Red Box
Daniel didn't answer. He couldn't. His face was gray, the color of wet ash, his lips trembling so hard he had to bite down on them to stop his teeth from chattering.
Detective Vance reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small, metallic digital recorder. He set it on the glass table beside the silver charm bracelet.
"Three weeks ago," Vance said, his voice dropping into a low, methodical drone, "Sarah managed to copy the text logs from your husband's secondary phone. The one he used to communicate with the offshore directors of Apex Capital."
He pressed play.
A harsh, digitized voice came through the small speaker.
“The audit is scheduled for November 12th. If the discrepancies in the Logan Square project aren't cleared, the federal indictment will name you personally, Daniel.”
Then came Daniel’s voice. Clear, sharp, completely recognizable.
“The records don't exist anymore. I locked the primary hard drives in the red box. It’s in the vault beneath the floorboards in the study. Nobody has access to it except me.”
“And your wife?” the digitized voice asked.
“Claire doesn't know anything,” Daniel’s voice replied, devoid of any warmth, any affection, any trace of the man who called me his sweet girl every morning. “She still thinks her sister ran away to California. She’s fragile. One nudge and she breaks. I’ve kept her medicated since the delivery.”
I stopped breathing.
Medicated.
For five years, ever since Emily’s birth, I had taken a small white pill every night before bed. Daniel handed it to me with a glass of water every single evening. For your blood pressure, darling, he would say, smoothing my hair back. To keep you safe.
I felt a surge of nausea so violent I had to press my hand against my ribs to keep from throwing up right there on the rug.
"He wasn't keeping you safe, Mrs. Carter," Vance said, his voice softening slightly as he looked at me. "He was keeping you docile. Those pills weren't for blood pressure. They were low-dose tranquilizers mixed with a mild amnestic agent used in clinical trials. It kept your short-term memory hazy. It made sure you didn't ask questions when things didn't add up."
I turned my head slowly toward Daniel.
"The pills," I whispered. "Every night."
Daniel took a frantic step forward, his hands raised in surrender. "Claire... Claire, listen to me! I had to! You were losing your mind after Elena vanished! You were searching her apartment every day! You were going to get yourself hurt! Apex... these people aren't businessmen, Claire! They're dangerous! They would have killed you!"
"So you poisoned me instead?" I stood up.
I didn't realize I was moving until I was standing two inches from him. I am five-foot-four. Daniel is six-foot-two. But in that moment, as he looked into my eyes, he backed up until his spine slammed against the wall frame.
"You drugged me for five years," I said, my voice barely audible above the hum of the central heating. "You made me think I was losing my mind. You made me think I was forgetting things because of trauma."
"I loved you!" Daniel cried out, tears finally streaming down his cheeks. "Everything I did, I did to keep this family together! I built this life for us! The house, the money, Emily's school—"
"Don't you dare say her name," I hissed, my hand snapping out and catching him across the face with every ounce of strength in my body.
The slap cracked through the room like a gunshot.
Daniel’s head snapped to the side. He didn't fight back. He just stood there, clutching his cheek, weeping softly.
"Where is the red box, Daniel?" I asked again.
"It's... it's in the study," he sobbed, his control completely shattered. "Behind the floorboards under the desk."
"And Elena?" I pressed, stepping closer. "Where is my sister?"
Daniel squeezed his eyes shut. A long, shuddering breath escaped his lungs.
"She's... she's at the old water treatment facility in Gary," he whispered. "Under the south foundation."
Sarah let out a high, ragged scream and buried her face in her hands. Detective Vance closed his eyes for three long seconds, his jaw working as he mastered his grief, before opening them again to look at Daniel with pure, unadulterated coldness.
"Thank you, Mr. Carter," Vance said softly, pulling a set of steel handcuffs from his heavy coat pocket. "That's all we needed on tape."
Daniel opened his eyes, staring at the recorder on the table in sudden, horrified realization.
"You... you set me up," Daniel stammered.
May you like
"No," Vance said, stepping forward and grabbing Daniel’s arm with an iron grip. "You set yourself up five years ago when you decided a human life was worth less than your corporate portfolio."
With a sharp click, the steel cuff clamped around Daniel’s right wrist.
