On the television, Katherine’s recorded voice continued, cutting through the tension in the room. “The key to the safety deposit box isn’t in a bank, Mom. Do you remember the old grandfather clock in the hallway? The one Dad gave us? Look inside the weights. The documents proving their embezzlement are there. And the footage from the night they tried to force me to sign over the business shares is on a network drive accessible via the login details written on the back of Tanya’s favorite drawing of the sunflower garden.”
Bradley’s face turned an ugly, mottled purple. “She was crazy,” he stammered, looking at Raymond, then at me, his eyes wide with desperation. “She was paranoid, Mrs. Florence! You know how stressed she was with the business. She fell down the stairs. It was a tragic accident! The police investigators already looked at the stairs. There was no foul play!”
“The police looked at what you allowed them to see, Bradley,” Raymond countered smoothly. He clicked a button on a small remote control, pausing the video on a crystal-clear frame of Katherine’s face. “What you didn’t know is that Katherine had already consulted me three weeks ago. She knew you were draining the company assets to fund Heather’s boutique storefront in Scottsdale. She knew you were planning to file for a fraudulent divorce to strip her of her rights to the property. She stayed in that house only to gather enough evidence to ensure you would never, ever get custody of Tanya.”
Right at that moment, the loud wail of sirens began to echo down the quiet, manicured street of the Scottsdale neighborhood. The sound grew louder, bouncing off the stucco walls of the surrounding houses, signaling the arrival of the authorities.
Heather panicked. She bolted toward the back door that led to the patio and the pool area, intending to escape through the side gate. But the moment she threw the glass door open, she was met by two uniformed officers who had already secured the perimeter of the house. They ordered her to step back inside.
Detective Vance, a tall man with a somber expression who had initially spoken to me at the hospital the night Katherine died, walked through the front door. He looked at Bradley, then at the frozen image of Katherine on the television screen.
“Mr. Granger,” Detective Vance said, pulling a pair of handcuffs from his utility belt. “We received the digital package from Mr. Hughes’ office approximately twenty minutes ago. The IT department managed to recover the deleted files from your home cloud server. The footage from the night of August 14th is very clear. It shows the argument at the top of the stairs. It shows exactly how your wife fell.”
