Chapter 6 - A Dead Man’s Alibi
The blood in Tom’s hotel room wasn’t his.
It belonged to a private investigator named Marcus Bell.
Marcus had worked for Sarah.
David had never heard his name before.
Neither had police until they discovered his wallet beneath the hotel bed.
Marcus himself was missing.
His office had been searched.
His computer was gone.
But police recovered one thing from cloud storage.
An invoice.
CLIENT: SARAH WARREN
SUBJECT: T. WARREN FINANCIAL INVESTIGATION
David stared at the screen.
“She hired someone?”
“Six weeks before Ethan was born,” Morales said.
“What did he find?”
“We’re trying to recover the files.”
David looked toward Ethan.
His son was asleep in a temporary crib at David’s sister-in-law’s house under police protection.
Every new discovery made Sarah feel alive again.
Not alive in a comforting way.
Alive in fragments.
Afraid.
Working.
Trying to protect him while he had been too distracted to notice.
“I failed her,” David said.
Morales looked at him.
“You didn’t know.”
“She tried to tell me.”
“You said she mentioned Tom crossing boundaries.”
“And I made a joke.”
“You didn’t know he was threatening her.”
David stared at his wedding ring.
“I should have listened.”
By evening, forensic accountants found the first major break.
Over four years, nearly $11 million had been diverted from Warren Development through subcontractors that didn’t actually exist.
Every suspicious payment had been approved under Tom’s division.
But there was something worse.
One shell company had paid Dr. Alan Kessler $480,000.
Morales stared at the transaction.
“Why would your brother be sending half a million dollars to your wife’s doctor?”
David whispered, “To buy something.”
“Or somebody.”
Police returned to Kessler’s clinic.
He was gone.
His receptionist said he left through a rear entrance twenty minutes earlier.
His phone was turned off.
His wife said she had not seen him all day.
Now two men connected to Sarah’s death were missing.
At 10:07 p.m., David’s phone received a text.
Unknown number.
STOP DIGGING.
A photograph followed.
Ethan asleep.
David shot to his feet.
“Where did this come from?”
Morales grabbed the phone.
The photo had been taken less than five minutes earlier.
From inside the house where Ethan was supposedly under police protection.
David ran.
Two officers followed.
They tore through the hallway.
Ethan was still asleep.
Nothing disturbed.
Windows locked.
Doors secured.
Then one officer noticed the smoke detector above the crib.
He pulled it down.
Inside was a camera.
A fresh camera.
Installed after Ethan had been moved there.
Morales swore under her breath.
“How did they know where we brought him?”
Everyone looked at one another.
Only police.
David.
Dr. Mitchell.
And a handful of family members knew the location.
Then David remembered something.
“My mother.”
Morales turned.
“What?”
“I told my mother where Ethan was.”
“Who else could she have told?”
David shook his head.
“No one.”
His phone rang.
His mother’s name appeared.
MARGARET WARREN.
David answered.
“Mom?”
She was crying.
“David, you need to come home.”
“What happened?”
“It’s Tom.”
David closed his eyes.
“Where is he?”
A pause.
May you like
Then Margaret whispered:
“He’s sitting in my kitchen.”
