Chapter 3 - Shadows on Cedar Street
Natalie didn't hesitate. She darted out of the master bedroom, keeping low, and positioned herself beside the doorframe of the living room just as the front door clicked open.
A figure slipped quietly into the dark house, moving with the practiced ease of someone who had been inside before. The silhouette was slight, wrapped in a dark raincoat. In the faint ambient light from the streetlamp outside, Natalie caught the glint of something metallic in the intruder's hand.
"Don't move. Police!" Natalie shouted, stepping out from the shadows with her flashlight and weapon raised. "Drop whatever you're holding, right now!"
The figure gasped, stumbling backward against the wall. The raincoat hood fell back, revealing the pale, panic-stricken face of Denise Carter.
She wasn't holding a weapon. She was holding a heavy set of master keys and a small, leather-bound ledger.
"Officer! Oh, thank goodness," Denise stammered, her voice trembling with an Oscar-worthy performance of fear. "I saw the front door unlocked and a light on. I was just... I was just checking on the place! After what that monster did to poor Ashley, I was terrified someone was breaking in!"
Natalie stared at her, the memory of Andrew’s gasping voice—She was at the ravine... she pushed— burning in her brain.
"Put the keys down, Denise. Slow and steady," Natalie ordered, her voice ice-cold.
Denise’s expression shifted instantly. The trembling fear vanished, replaced by a cold, hardened glare. She slowly dropped the keys onto the entryway table.
"You're making a massive mistake, Officer," Denise said smoothly, stepping away from the wall. "The whole town thinks Andrew ran off. I was just trying to secure the property for child services. You have no proof of anything else."
"I have a dying man's phone call," Natalie replied, stepping closer, closing the distance between them. "And I have a warning written on a grocery list. You didn't want Andrew to make it back from the pharmacy that night, did you, Denise? What did he find out?"
Denise let out a sharp, humorless laugh. "Andrew was a fool. He trusted everyone. But he was asking too many questions about the neighborhood association funds—funds that I managed. He said he was going to the authorities with the audit records he found in my garage."
Denise’s hand suddenly darted toward her pocket. Natalie moved with lightning speed, lunging forward and pinning Denise against the wall, wrenching her arm behind her back and snapping the cuffs onto her wrists.
May you like
As Denise thrashed against the wall, something fell out of her pocket and clattered onto the floorboards: a small, silver flash drive and a handwritten note bearing Andrew’s signature—signed under extreme duress.
Natalie retrieved the flash drive, her heart pounding. The truth was finally surfacing, but Andrew was still out there in the freezing rain, injured and running out of time.
