Chapter 4 - The Rat in the Corner
Armed with the truth about Julian's finances, I had Diane file a massive civil suit for fraud, emotional distress, and defamation against Julian, Eleanor, and Marcus, freezing all of their known assets.
Julian was a cornered rat, and rats always try to bite when they have nowhere to run.
On Thursday night, a torrential downpour washed over Seattle. I was reviewing client files when the perimeter alarm on my smartwatch pulsed twice—a silent alert indicating a breach at the rear gate of my property.
I didn’t panic. I opened the security interface on my monitors. Two figures in dark hoodies were attempting to bypass the biometric lock on my server room, located in the detached garage. They were looking for the master drives holding the 4K footage of the assault. Julian and Marcus.
They had used a cloned key fob—likely copied during the three days Julian lived here. But they didn’t know I had changed the cryptographic handshake on all locks the moment he was arrested.
I watched them struggle, cursing in the rain. I hit a button on my desk. The outer garage door, which they had jimmied open, slammed shut behind them, magnetically locking with two thousand pounds of force.
A speaker crackled to life inside the garage. “Julian,” I projected my voice, cold and amplified. “Did you really think a threat assessment expert wouldn't build a mantrap into her own server room?”
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Julian screamed, bashing a crowbar against the reinforced steel door.
I picked up my phone and dialed Ramirez. “Officer, I have two intruders trapped in my garage. One of them is currently violating a restraining order. Bring a transport van.”
