PART 3 — What Dr. Chen Found
Sienna stared at the torn fabric.
“No…”
Her voice cracked.
“It was here.”
I closed the library door behind us.
“What was?”
She looked toward the hallway, terrified Garrick might be listening.
“A flash drive.”
Dr. Chen gently supported her injured arm.
“Sienna, we need to get you to a hospital. Your shoulder may be fractured, and there are signs of damage around your wrist.”
“I can’t leave without it.”
“What was on the drive?” I asked.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Proof.”
The word barely left her lips.
She explained that three weeks earlier, Garrick had asked her to sign documents involving one of Ashford Industries’ charitable subsidiaries.
She had refused because the payment records did not make sense.
Millions of dollars had been transferred to consulting companies with no employees, no offices, and no public clients.
All three companies were linked to trusts registered under Miriam’s maiden name.
Sienna secretly copied the files.
Garrick discovered what she had done on Friday night.
“He took my phone,” she whispered. “Then my passport. He said I wasn’t leaving until I told him where I put the files.”
My stomach turned cold.
“Did he injure your arm?”
She nodded.
“He twisted it behind me. I heard something crack.”
Dr. Chen looked away, struggling to control his anger.
“Miriam watched,” Sienna continued. “She told him not to leave marks where people could see them.”
I had prosecuted hundreds of violent men.
Yet hearing my daughter say those words made every instinct inside me demand immediate revenge.
But revenge was not what Sienna needed.
She needed evidence.
Safety.
And time to make her own decisions again.
“Who knew about the drive?” I asked.
“Only Garrick.”
A floorboard creaked outside the library.
Commissioner Fletcher opened the door.
“Garrick is demanding that everyone leave.”
“He can demand whatever he likes,” I said.
Fletcher stepped closer.
“There’s something else. One of my officers checked the estate security system.”
“And?”
“Every camera inside this house stopped recording Friday evening.”
Sienna’s injury had happened Friday evening.
The cameras came back online Saturday morning.
Someone had deliberately erased twelve hours.
Fletcher’s phone buzzed.
He read the message, then looked at Sienna.
“We found your passport.”
“Where?”
“In Garrick’s locked desk.”
That was enough to begin establishing unlawful restraint.
But as Fletcher turned to leave, Sienna grabbed his sleeve.
“There’s another camera.”
Everyone looked at her.
“Garrick doesn’t know about it,” she whispered. “The installer put a backup camera inside the nursery after someone kept entering the room.”
“What nursery?” I asked.
Sienna’s face went pale.
“The one Garrick ordered sealed after I lost the baby.”
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Then she said something that made my blood run cold.
“The night he injured me, Miriam carried a metal box into that room.”
