Chapter 6 - The Setup
I took the Florida files to Detective Vance. He looked them over, his jaw ticking, but slammed his fist on the desk.
"David, this is circumstantial! Florida PD couldn't nail him then, and we can't arrest him for it now. We need hard evidence of what happened to Rachel, or we need to catch him violating his bail conditions here."
I left the precinct feeling utterly defeated. But when I got back to my car, my phone rang. It was an unknown number. I answered it cautiously.
"David," Marcus's smooth, aristocratic voice slithered through the speaker. "I saw you leaving the precinct. Still playing detective, I see."
"I know who you are, Mark," I snarled. "I know about Elaine. I know about Leo."
There was a long, chilling pause on the other end. When he spoke again, the fake charm was gone, replaced by a hollow, demonic emptiness.
"You shouldn't have dug that up, David. You've accelerated the timeline. Check your trunk."
May you like
I dropped the phone, sprinted to the back of my car, and popped the trunk. Inside, wrapped in a plastic sheet, was the heavy industrial padlock I had broken off Lily's cage. It was covered in fresh, wet blood.
He was framing me. He was going to use his wealth to twist the narrative, claiming I was the violent one stalking him. He was setting the stage for a "self-defense" killing.
