Room 1708
Chapter 03 - Room 1708
Police lights washed the Seabreeze Hotel in red and blue when Daniel arrived. Detective Ortiz met him near the entrance and warned that Vanessa and Brooke had registered under false names. Hotel security had already confirmed they were in Room 1708.
Daniel showed Ortiz the threatening message and the photograph of the envelope.
“We go in together,” she said. “You do not confront them alone.”
When officers knocked, Brooke opened the balcony door instead and tried to slip onto the neighboring terrace with a silver suitcase. Vanessa remained inside, wearing a turquoise swimsuit beneath a white robe, as though the entire crime were an inconvenience interrupting her vacation.
“You brought police against your own sister?” she asked.
“You attacked my wife and stole food from my newborn daughter.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Emily exaggerated. She always does.”
Officers entered and found the apartment’s groceries stacked in the hotel kitchenette, Daniel’s father’s watch inside Brooke’s purse, and the metal box beneath the bed. The original company papers were missing.
Brooke, trapped on the balcony, began shouting that everything had been Vanessa’s plan. Vanessa shouted back that Martin Hale had designed the transfer and promised them immunity.
Daniel opened the envelope from the photograph. Inside was a handwritten letter from his father and a small memory card.
His father’s letter revealed that Vanessa had secretly borrowed millions against the company years earlier to finance failed luxury developments. Martin had hidden the losses, then altered estate records after Daniel’s father became ill. The company sale Daniel had just completed would expose the missing money during the final audit.
The memory card contained recorded meetings between Martin and Vanessa.
On one recording, Martin explained how to forge Daniel’s messages, remove the succession certificate, and transfer the reserve funds. He also suggested creating evidence that Emily was an unfit mother. If child services removed the baby temporarily, Daniel would be emotionally desperate enough to sign anything.
Emily’s ruined home had been staged.
Vanessa had emptied the refrigerator not only out of cruelty, but to make photographs of neglect believable.
Daniel felt sick. “You were willing to take my daughter from us.”
For the first time, Vanessa’s confidence cracked. “Father left you everything. The company, the apartment, the trust. I was treated like I didn’t exist.”
“He left you a paid home and a trust worth two million dollars.”
“I deserved half.”
Detective Ortiz asked where the original papers were.
Vanessa smiled again. “Already delivered.”
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Daniel’s phone rang. Martin Hale was inside Harbor National Bank, using the stolen certificate to claim emergency authority over the company.
And the bank vault would open in eleven minutes.
