Chapter 9 - The Hidden Safe
|
Later that night, I waited until 2:00 AM.
Pamela was sound asleep in our master bedroom, having taken a sleeping pill to soothe her anxious nerves.
I slipped out of bed silently, wearing soft rubber-soled shoes, and crept down the dark hallway to Pamela’s private home office near the back of the house.
Lincoln was monitoring my earpiece remotely. “I’ve disabled the motion sensors in that wing of the house, Gregory. You have twenty minutes before the automatic system check.”
I approached the built-in bookshelf in Pamela’s office. Behind a set of decorative leather-bound books was a small digital safe—one she had installed six months ago, claiming it was for her personal jewelry.
“What’s the code?” I whispered into my collar.
“I ran an infrared heat scan on the keypad when she used it yesterday from the hidden camera feed,” Lincoln instructed. “Try 0-9-1-2-8-4.”
I punched in the numbers. The electronic lock clicked softly, and the heavy steel door swung open.
Inside, resting on top of a stack of bank statements, was the small glass dropper bottle. I took a photo of it with my phone, being careful not to touch it directly to preserve fingerprint evidence. Beside the bottle was a second smartphone—a cheap burner phone—and a folder containing legal documents.
I picked up the burner phone. It was unlocked.
I opened the text messaging application. Hundreds of messages between Pamela and a contact saved as “S.V.” filled the screen.
I scrolled through them, capturing photos of every single exchange with my own phone.
“He bought the story about her behavior,” one text from Pamela read.
“Good,” Spencer had replied. “Once Dr. Aris signs the preliminary evaluation, we file the emergency guardianship petition in California. The trustee transfer on the La Jolla house will take less than thirty days.”
May you like
“Make sure the drops are fully out of her system before the court toxicology test,” Spencer added in a subsequent text. “We only need the video evidence and Aris’s report.”
My blood burned cold. They weren't just scheming; they were celebrating their impending theft of my daughter’s inheritance while systematically destroying her mind.
