Chapter 9 - The Perfect Frame
I stared blankly at the glowing screen of my phone, the horrific headline burning deeply into my retinas.
A grainy security photo showed a woman wearing my exact navy-blue anniversary dress running frantically from Claire's building.
Daniel had truly thought of absolutely everything.
He had used Claire to steal the fake ledger, murdered her to tie up loose ends, and framed me for it simultaneously.
Natalie leaned painfully against the elevator wall, nursing her badly bleeding hand.
She openly mocked me, stating I was now officially the most wanted woman in the entire state of Massachusetts.
She told me to hand over the drive right now, promising she would make sure my inevitable death was quick and painless.
Instead, I kicked her dropped gun further away and forced the elevator doors open with the iron pry bar.
We were stuck exactly halfway between the forty-eighth and forty-ninth floors.
I hoisted myself up with a surge of adrenaline, crawling through the narrow gap into the dimly lit hallway of the forty-ninth floor.
Natalie screamed vile curses at me from below, threatening to hunt me down to the very ends of the earth.
I didn't bother looking back.
I sprinted down the long hallway, desperately searching for a secure place to hide and think.
The entire floor was under heavy construction, filled with plastic tarps, exposed electrical wires, and empty offices.
I hid behind a massive stack of drywall, my chest heaving as I booted up my laptop.
I quickly plugged the encrypted hard drive into the USB port.
A prompt instantly appeared on the screen, requesting a biometric thumbprint to proceed.
I pressed my trembling thumb firmly against the glowing scanner.
The drive unlocked with a chime, revealing thousands of heavily hidden folders.
I didn't care about the corporate financial documents anymore.
I desperately needed proof that Daniel was actually at Claire's apartment during the murder.
I searched frantically for hidden audio files, location tracking data, or anything that could conclusively prove my innocence.
I finally found a locked folder labeled specifically as home security.
Inside was a live feed link to the hidden security cameras Daniel had secretly installed in our own house.
I clicked it, fully expecting to see a completely empty living room.
Instead, I saw Daniel pacing frantically back and forth across our expensive rug.
He was completely covered in dark blood, scrubbing his hands with a towel, and yelling furiously at someone just off-camera.
I quickly unmuted the audio, my heart stopping completely at the sound of the second voice.
It was a voice I recognized instantly from years of legal consultations.
It was Rebecca Shaw, my trusted divorce attorney.
Rebecca stepped calmly into the camera frame, holding a glass of our expensive red wine.
She told Daniel to calm down, assuring him that Natalie had me trapped in the elevator and the police were currently searching for me.
My own lawyer was the brilliant mastermind behind my entire destruction.
But as I watched the screen in absolute, paralyzing horror, the temporary office door behind me slowly clicked open.
I spun around wildly, clutching the heavy iron pry bar as a weapon.
Standing perfectly still in the doorway, bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound to his shoulder, was Daniel.
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He looked at me with wild, terrified eyes, slowly dropping his handgun to the concrete floor.
He fell heavily to his knees and begged me to save his life.
