Chapter 14 - The Wire
Olivia remembered the rainy afternoon, four months ago, when she had finally walked into the downtown police precinct. She was terrified, constantly looking over her shoulder, convinced one of Vanessa's men was following her.
She had asked to speak to someone in financial crimes. She was introduced to Detective Arthur Miller.
She sat in his cramped, messy office and laid out everything she knew. She handed over the encrypted flash drives David had hidden in their floorboards before his death. Miller had listened to her story, his expression growing darker and more focused with every word.
"This is enough to launch a quiet investigation," Miller had told her. "But Vanessa Harrington has half the judges in this city in her pocket. If we move on financial charges alone, her lawyers will tie this up in court for a decade."
"Then what do we do?" Olivia had asked.
"We need her to make a critical, undeniable mistake," Miller said. "We need to catch her committing a violent felony. Something her money cannot cover up."
It was Olivia’s idea to attend the engagement party. She knew her presence would drive Vanessa completely insane.
"I will wear a wire," Olivia had insisted. "I will stand in the middle of her ballroom and let her confront me in front of hundreds of witnesses."
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Miller had been entirely against it at first, citing the extreme danger to her pregnancy. But Olivia was unyielding. She knew she could not spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder, waiting for an assassin to finish the job. She had to end the war, permanently.
And so, she had walked into the golden cage, willingly acting as the bait to catch a monster.
