Chapter 7 - The Blinking Device.
Ortiz pulled Ethan and Margaret away from the car and ordered the command post cleared.
A bomb technician examined the blinking object beneath the driver’s seat.
It was not an explosive.
It was a tracking transmitter connected to a phone that had been recording every conversation inside the vehicle.
Raymond had escaped transport during the confusion at the hospital and returned to guide them toward the device.
He surrendered with both hands visible.
“Daniel is listening,” he said.
Ortiz placed him in a patrol car but allowed him to explain.
Raymond admitted helping Daniel move company money through false accounts.
He claimed he believed the scheme was limited to financial fraud until Claire confronted them with the ledger.
Daniel then arranged the fake accident and used a private medical contractor to keep Claire sedated.
The funeral was supposed to create witnesses to her death and force the transfer of her shares.
Raymond had objected to placing her in a sealed coffin.
Daniel responded by threatening Raymond’s daughter.
“Why should we believe you now?” Margaret asked.
Raymond looked toward Ethan.
“Because that boy did what every adult in the room was too afraid to do.”
He said Daniel had placed the tracker in Margaret’s car so he could hear police strategy and move Claire before officers arrived.
The airport departure was another decoy.
Daniel intended to use the railway freight terminal, where North Star Logistics controlled private loading bays.
Ortiz sent one team to the airport and another to the terminal without stating either plan near the tracker.
She left the phone active and announced a false route toward the county marina.
Within minutes, a message appeared on the device.
Daniel ordered someone named Victor to relocate the “package” from the terminal to the river warehouse.
The trap had worked.
Raymond provided a map of the freight yard and warned that the man with the shaved head from the funeral was Victor Dane, Daniel’s security chief.
Ethan remembered Victor locking the chapel doors.
He also remembered the man with glasses carrying the forged documents.
Raymond identified him as attorney Stephen Vale.
Vale had created the false medical directives and the trust transfer.
The conspiracy now had names, payments, and a route.
Ortiz prepared to leave Ethan and Margaret with state police.
Before she departed, Ethan handed her the memory card from the attic.
“You still haven’t watched it.”
Ortiz inserted it into a secured laptop.
The first files showed Daniel and Raymond discussing accounts in Claire’s study.
The final recording was different.
It showed Claire speaking directly to the camera two days before her disappearance.
“If you are seeing this, Daniel has learned that the real ledger is not in my office.”
She looked toward someone standing behind the camera.
Then a child’s voice asked where she had hidden it.
Claire smiled sadly.
“Inside the one place he believes contains only grief.”
The recording ended.
Everyone turned toward Ethan.
The white coffin had been taken into police evidence.
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The real ledger was still inside it.
THE WOMAN BENEATH THE WHITE LID
