Chapter 6 - The Arrogance of a Killer
I took the pen with trembling hands, letting it hover over the signature line. Then, I let it drop. It clattered against the glass table.
“I can’t,” I sobbed, burying my face in my hands. “I don't understand, Daniel. I checked the alarms before I left for town that night. I swear I did. How could the carbon monoxide system fail? How could I be so stupid?”
Daniel rolled his eyes, pouring himself a drink from my liquor cabinet.
“Because you’re incompetent,” he sneered, taking a sip.
“Tell me!” I screamed suddenly, looking up with wild, tear-filled eyes. “If I'm going to take the blame, if I'm going to lose my company, tell me how it happened! Tell me why my babies had to die!”
Vanessa laughed from the doorway. “You really are pathetic. Tell her, Danny. Who cares? She’s signing everything away anyway. Look at her, she’s a mess.”
Daniel smirked. He walked closer, his ego swelling, unable to resist the urge to brag about his own brilliance.
“You really want to know how easy it was to outsmart the brilliant engineer?” he mocked, leaning over the table. “Your alarms didn’t fail. I turned them off.”
I gasped, forcing myself to shrink back into the couch. “What? No... you couldn't have.”
“I punched in my access code at 8:17 PM,” he confessed, his voice ringing loud and clear for the hidden microphones. “I blocked the ventilation in the basement, turned on the gas generator, and locked the doors. It took less than ten minutes for the house to fill. Emma and Ethan were already asleep. They didn't even wake up.”
“You killed them,” I whispered, staring at him. “For money.”
“For freedom,” Vanessa corrected, stepping forward to loop her arm through his. “Your company was suffocating him. Now, we get the twenty million from the insurance my brother set up, and we get your empire.”
May you like
Daniel tapped the paper. “I disabled the system, I left them to breathe the gas, and I made sure you took the fall. A perfect plan. Now, sign the damn papers.”
He had given us everything. The time, the method, the motive, and the absolute confirmation of his guilt.
