Chapter 3 - The Private Eye
I needed help. Someone outside the local police department. I remembered Chloe, a former military intelligence officer who now ran a gritty private investigation firm two towns over. She owed me a favor from years ago when I helped her brother out of a bad gambling debt.
I showed up at her office at 3:00 a.m. She drew a Glock 19 on me before I even had the door fully open.
"Elias," she said, lowering the weapon, her eyes narrowing. "You're the most wanted man in the state right now."
"I didn't do it, Chloe." I tossed the flash drive onto her desk. "Watch."
She plugged it into an air-gapped laptop. As the footage played, her jaw tightened. When Sarah smirked at the camera and told Mark to frame me, Chloe slammed her fist on the desk. "Jesus Christ. This is ice cold."
"They drained my savings. I think there's more. I need you to dig into Mark's finances. And Sarah's."
By dawn, Chloe had bypassed a dozen firewalls. What she found made my blood run colder than the night of the murder.
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"Elias," Chloe said, turning the monitor toward me. "Mark’s construction business is bankrupt. He owes half a million to a loan shark operating out of Vegas. And your wife... she took out a life insurance policy on you six months ago. Double indemnity. Two million dollars."
It all clicked into a horrifying picture. They framed me for murder, hoping I’d get the death penalty or be killed by police in a standoff. Or worse, maybe they planned to "find" me dead and claim it was suicide from the guilt. Either way, they get the money, and they get each other.
