Chapter 3 - The Staged Kidnapping
The police officers immediately changed their posture and placed their hands back on their duty belts.
Otis handed them the undeniable paper trail proving Wade had named himself the sole beneficiary of my unexpected death.
He explained that Wade breaking the glass was meant to look like an accident where I tragically fell and injured myself.
The officers aggressively grabbed Wade by the arms and slammed him into heavy steel handcuffs.
Wade screamed that Otis was lying, but his arrogant confidence had completely evaporated.
As they dragged him out to the police cruiser, my cell phone began to ring loudly on the kitchen counter.
The caller ID displayed Caroline's name, making my breath catch painfully in my throat.
I answered the phone, fully expecting to hear the terrifying voice of a violent loan shark demanding my money.
Instead, I heard the ambient noise of a busy coffee shop and the gentle clinking of silverware.
Caroline spoke into the phone with a perfectly calm, annoyed tone that I recognized instantly.
She demanded to know why the neighbors were texting her about Wade being arrested on my front lawn.
I stood frozen in my kitchen, realizing the photograph of her tied to a chair was entirely staged.
My own daughter had actively participated in a twisted extortion plot to steal my life savings.
I asked her where Hudson and May were, praying that she hadn't involved the innocent children in her cruel scam.
Caroline scoffed and said the kids were perfectly fine, but she refused to tell me their exact location.
She coldly ordered me to drop all the criminal charges against Wade immediately.
She threatened that if Wade went to prison, I would never be allowed to see my beloved grandchildren ever again.
The sheer cruelty of her blackmail felt like a physical knife twisting deep into my chest.
I took a deep breath, clutching the green accordion file that proved thirteen years of her endless manipulation.
I told my daughter that I would absolutely never drop the charges, and I hung up the phone.
The television in my living room was playing the local morning news quietly in the background.
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A breaking news banner suddenly flashed across the bottom of the screen with Wade's professional headshot.
The news anchor announced that Wade's prestigious law firm had just been raided by the FBI for a massive corporate embezzlement scandal.
