Chapter 7 - The BlackoutSomeone Was Trying to Kill the Evidence
The courtroom plunged into darkness.
People screamed.
Chairs scraped across the floor.
A security alarm began to ring.
Clara grabbed Daniel's hand.
"Stay close."
A crash came from the evidence table.
Then another.
When the lights returned, the courtroom was chaos.
The envelope containing Clara's alleged confession was gone.
So was the original photograph.
Daniel looked around.
"Someone took the evidence."
The judge ordered the doors locked.
No one could leave.
Then a court officer found a bloodstained glove beneath the table.
The prosecution pointed at Clara.
"It's hers."
Clara stared in disbelief.
"No."
Margaret shook her head sadly.
"This is becoming impossible to explain."
But Rachel stepped forward.
"No."
Everyone turned.
"The glove belongs to someone who wears a wedding ring on the right hand."
Clara did not.
Neither did Adam.
Margaret did.
The courtroom erupted again.
Police moved toward Margaret.
She suddenly screamed:
"Don't touch me!"
Then Idan spoke.
"She had another glove."
He pointed at the doorway.
"Like the one she wore when she came into my room last night."
Adam turned toward his mother.
"Mother."
Margaret looked at him.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing."
"You framed Clara."
"I protected this family."
"From what?"
Margaret said nothing.
Elias stepped forward.
"From me."
Everyone turned.
He took a small flash drive from his pocket.
"I kept backups."
Daniel inserted it into his laptop.
A video appeared.
Security footage from the Hamilton mansion.
The date matched the night of the alleged theft.
At 2:07 a.m., Clara was nowhere near the mansion.
At 2:11, Margaret entered the bedroom.
At 2:13, she removed the emerald.
At 2:17, another person entered.
A man with a scar.
Elias.
At 2:20, Margaret handed him the emerald.
But Elias shook his head.
He pointed toward a hidden camera.
Someone else was watching.
The footage froze.
Daniel enhanced the image.
A figure appeared in the reflection of the mirror.
A woman.
Rachel.
Clara looked at her.
"Why were you there?"
Rachel's eyes filled with tears.
"I came back for you."
Adam stepped toward her.
"You were in the house?"
"Yes."
"Then why didn't you reveal yourself?"
Rachel looked at Idan.
"Because your mother had threatened to hurt him."
Margaret laughed.
"That is a lie."
Rachel turned toward the judge.
"I have proof."
She reached into her purse.
A cassette tape.
Old.
Dusty.
She handed it to the court.
"The recording I made the night I disappeared."
The judge ordered it played.
Margaret's younger voice came through.
"You will disappear, Rachel."
Rachel's voice answered:
"You cannot control me forever."
Margaret replied:
"I don't need forever."
There was a pause.
"Only until Idan is twenty-one."
Clara stared at the speaker.
Daniel whispered:
"That's when the trust matures."
Margaret had been waiting for Idan to turn twenty-one.
But Clara suddenly understood something else.
"Why frame me now?"
Everyone looked at her.
She continued.
"The emerald was only a distraction."
Daniel's eyes widened.
"From the trust."
Clara nodded.
"Someone is moving the money."
Elias pulled out another document.
A transfer had occurred that morning.
Thirty million dollars had been moved out of the trust.
The beneficiary had changed.
The new beneficiary was not Margaret.
Not Adam.
Not Idan.
It was an unknown company.
Carter International.
Elias stared at the page.
"I did not authorize this."
Clara whispered:
"Then who did?"
At that exact moment, Adam received a text.
He read it.
His face collapsed.
"What?"
Clara asked.
Adam showed Daniel.
The message contained a photograph of Idan.
The boy was outside the courthouse.
Alone.
May you like
Underneath the photograph was one sentence.
The next child disappears at midnight.
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