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Mark stood there. The tailored navy wedding suit was wrinkled now. His tie was loosened, his eyes bloodshot and wild. The handsome, charming facade he had used to deceive everyone I knew had completely evaporated. In its place was a desperate, dangerous man who realized his entire life was about to collapse.
“You think you won?” Mark whispered, his breath hot against my face. Mr. Reeves immediately stepped between us, but Mark pushed him back with a savage shove. “Get out of my way, counselor. Eleanor, listen to me very carefully.”
He leaned in closer, ignoring the security guard who was already running down the hallway toward us.
“You think that video is the only thing your father left behind?” Mark sneered, a terrifying, manic glint in his eyes. “You think Tom was just trying to protect you? Your father was a thief, Eleanor. Why do you think he had the money to buy this house for us? Why do you think he suddenly ‘retired’ from the defense tech firm eleven years ago?”
My heart plummeted into a cold, dark abyss. “What are you talking about?”
“The video isn’t finished, Eleanor,” Mark whispered, a sickening smile slowly spreading across his face as the security guard tackled him to the floor. As he was being forced down, he looked up at me, his laugh echoing off the concrete walls. “Watch the last two minutes of the file! Ask yourself why your father really died, Eleanor! Ask yourself what is hidden under the floorboards of his old workshop! If that forensic tech plays the rest of that video to the judge… you won’t just lose custody of Lily. You’re going to federal prison right along with me!”
The guard dragged him away, his screams fading down the corridor.
I stood frozen in the middle of the hallway, Lily clutching my neck, while my father’s warning echoed in my mind from a lifetime ago: “A girl who knows where the screws are hidden will never be trapped by a man who thinks doors only open one way.”
Suddenly, the door to the judge’s chambers flew open. Mr. Caldwell stepped out, but he wasn’t looking at me with defiance anymore. He looked pale, his eyes wide with horror as he held a printed transcript that had just been pulled from the forensic analysis.
“Mrs. Harlan,” Caldwell said, his voice barely a whisper. “The judge needs you in his chambers right now. The tech just unlocked the second partition of the video file. It… it isn’t a recording of your husband.”