Chapter 4 - The Hunt Begins
Returning to the house was harder than we anticipated. The yellow police tape fluttering in the breeze across the front porch felt like a physical barrier to our past life. The burning pot on the stove had been cleared, but the lingering smell of charred metal and scorched sauce still hung in the air, a grim reminder of how abruptly life had halted.
Detective Carter met us at the door, flanked by two uniformed officers.
"Thank you for coming, Daniel," Carter said. "I know this isn't easy."
"Just tell me what you need," Daniel replied, his jaw set.
"Julian’s laptop uses a hardware token—a small, black USB drive with a silver band," Carter explained. "According to his secretary, he always kept a duplicate token close to his client files. Since he managed your files directly from your home office and workshop, we believe he hid it somewhere here to access your accounts securely without leaving a digital trace on the network."
We descended into the basement. The air was cool and damp. The empty water bottles and the zip ties were still lying on the concrete floor, outlined in white chalk. I felt a shudder run down my spine, but Daniel marched past the crime scene toward his workbench.
He began pulling out drawers, sorting through tools, blueprints, and organizing bins.
"Julian always told me to keep my personal financial documents in the steel lockbox under the desk," Daniel muttered, kneeling down. He pulled out a heavy, dark-green box. "But he had his own key."
He opened the box. Inside were folders of bank statements, tax returns, and property deeds. Tucked into the very back of the binder was a small plastic baggie containing a black USB drive with a silver band.
"This is it," Daniel said, handing it to Detective Carter.
"Excellent," Carter said, plugging it into a portable rugged tablet he had brought with him. He began typing rapidly. "Let's see what Mr. Vance was trying to hide."
As the progress bar on the screen loaded, the screen flashed with rows of financial transactions, encrypted emails, and GPS coordinates.
"Look at this," Carter said, pointing to a series of outgoing messages sent just three hours ago. "Vanessa and Julian aren't traveling together anymore. They split up."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because Julian realized Vanessa was going to double-cross him," Carter explained, reading through the decrypted messages. "It looks like Vanessa took the bulk of the cash they had already liquidated and headed north toward the Canadian border. Julian, realizing he was left holding the bag with no money and the police on his tail, sent her a series of threatening messages. He was trying to track her down before we found him."
The screen suddenly beeped, displaying a real-time cellular ping.
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"We’ve got a signal," Carter announced, his eyes widening. "Julian’s burner phone just turned on. He's at a motel off Route 9, less than thirty miles from here. He's waiting for a contact to get him a fake ID."
"Go get him," Daniel said, his voice hard as steel. "Make him pay."
