Not much. Not enough for a movie. Just a thin trace on the corner of the marble stair, cleaned badly with bleach, still caught in the seam where stone met wood. Maya’s blood, according to preliminary lab results. Not from the fall pattern Daniel described.
He had counted on my grief making me stupid.
Instead, grief made me precise.
Celeste stepped forward, perfume slicing through the lilies. “Daniel loved your sister. You’re just jealous because Maya had a life.”
My father moved as if to speak, but I raised one hand. Not yet.
Daniel saw the gesture and smirked again. “You always did like control, Lena.”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s why I got warrants.”
Pierce’s smile vanished.
Daniel’s eyes flicked toward the back of the chapel. Too late. Two detectives stood near the doors, plainclothes, hands folded. Behind them waited a uniformed officer with a sealed evidence bag.
I had not come to scream. Screaming was what Daniel expected from women he hurt.
So I opened the folder I had carried beneath my coat.
“Three weeks ago, Maya discovered you had emptied her inheritance account and moved the funds through Celeste’s consulting company. Two weeks ago, she contacted a divorce attorney. Nine days ago, she scheduled a meeting with me. She never made it.”
Daniel’s mother, who had sat dry-eyed in the front row, snapped, “How dare you accuse my son at his wife’s funeral?”
I looked at her. “Your son searched ‘stair fall pregnancy survival rate’ at 2:14 a.m. on the night Maya died.”
A sob rolled through the chapel.
Daniel whispered, “That’s not mine.”
“Your laptop. Your login. Your face on the security camera entering the study five minutes before the search.”
Celeste’s grip loosened from his arm.
Daniel noticed.
That was the first crack.
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