Chapter 4 - The CufflinkThe cufflink was engraved.
R + J
Renee remembered ordering it.
Julian had lost one after a charity dinner in May.
They searched the car.
Closet.
Dry cleaner.
Eventually they gave up.
Now the missing piece was inside an evidence bag.
Detective Ellison placed a photograph on the conference-room table.
“It was recovered six feet from the water.”
Renee stared.
“How did Derek get it?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Julian answered.
“My old car.”
Renee turned.
“What?”
“I left my tuxedo jacket in the car after the dinner.”
“Derek had access?”
Julian nodded slowly.
“The car went to the dealership the next morning.”
Derek’s cousin managed the service department.
Mara wrote that down.
Julian rubbed his forehead.
“He could’ve taken it.”
“Could have,” Mara said. “We need proof.”
Evidence was teaching Renee patience.
She hated it.
Everything inside her wanted to assemble the pieces instantly.
Derek.
Cufflink.
Lake.
Frame-up.
But suspicion was not proof.
Then came another discovery.
A message had been sent from Julian’s phone number to Derek two nights earlier.
We need to finish this before Renee sees the final audit.
Julian stared at the screenshot.
“I never sent that.”
Renee looked at him.
“Are you sure?”
He looked hurt.
Then understood why she asked.
“Yes.”
Mara examined him.
“Could someone access your phone?”
“Not easily.”
“Computer?”
Julian stopped.
“The old family iPad.”
Renee understood.
Messages from Julian’s account sometimes synchronized there.
The tablet had disappeared from the kitchen weeks earlier.
They assumed Zoey left it somewhere.
Zoey had not.
Police found the tablet inside Derek’s garage during a search authorized after his arrest.
It contained a saved login session for Julian’s messaging account.
The account history showed a message created and deleted locally.
The wording matched the one sent to Derek.
Someone had used Julian’s identity to manufacture communication between the two men.
The frame-up became more tangible.
Derek appeared to be building evidence that Julian was involved in whatever financial wrongdoing the audit uncovered.
Why?
Because if suspicion fell on Julian, Renee’s new marriage could collapse.
Exactly what Derek wanted.
But there was another layer.
The $640,000.
Where had it gone?
The forensic accountant, Leah Morgan, returned to the mansion with updated records.
Renee sat with Julian and their attorney, Daniel Reeve.
Leah opened a spreadsheet.
“Three companies received most of the questionable distributions.”
North Cedar Management.
Lakeshore Youth Consulting.
Briar Ridge Services.
Renee recognized none.
“Owners?”
“North Cedar traces to a registered agent in Delaware. Lakeshore dissolved last year. Briar Ridge uses a mailbox in New Haven.”
“Derek?”
“We haven’t proved beneficial ownership.”
Julian pointed to one transfer.
“What is this?”
$180,000 had moved from Briar Ridge to a real-estate investment called Westvale Commons.
Renee stared.
“Derek owned Westvale.”
Leah nodded.
“He was a minority investor.”
The project failed eighteen months earlier.
Derek told everyone he lost his own money.
It now appeared at least some of the money had belonged to Zoey.
Renee stood abruptly.
“I asked him.”
Julian looked at her.
“When the project collapsed, I asked if Zoey’s accounts were exposed.”
“What did he say?”
Renee laughed once.
“He called me paranoid.”
The word tasted familiar.
During their marriage Derek used it whenever Renee questioned finances.
Paranoid.
Emotional.
Controlling.
Ungrateful.
She had stopped asking questions because every question became a referendum on her personality.
Julian touched her arm.
She pulled away instinctively.
He let go immediately.
That small respect nearly made her cry.
Leah continued.
“We also found something else.”
Another account.
Not Zoey’s.
Renee’s.
A joint investment account left over from the marriage had supposedly been closed after the divorce.
It was not.
The account remained active with less than $10,000.
Records showed that eighteen months earlier it had received $260,000 from Lakeshore Youth Consulting.
Then transferred it to an entity called DCH Capital.
Renee frowned.
“What is DCH?”
Daniel answered after checking corporate records.
“Derek Charles Hayes.”
Derek’s initials.
Silence.
The financial trail was becoming harder to explain innocently.
Then Mara called.
She had interviewed Derek.
He denied touching Zoey’s money.
Denied planting the cufflink.
Denied using Julian’s account.
Denied intending to kill Zoey.
But he admitted one thing.
He claimed Julian asked him to help “move family money temporarily” because Renee would not approve.
Mara asked whether he had evidence.
Derek said yes.
A contract.
Signed by Julian.
Police recovered it from Derek’s safe.
Julian’s signature appeared at the bottom.
Renee looked at the scanned page.
“It looks real.”
Julian stared at it.
“It isn’t.”
Daniel leaned closer.
The document authorized DCH Capital to receive funds for “investment restructuring.”
Dated fourteen months earlier.
Julian had barely known Derek then.
Why would he sign?
He wouldn’t.
But the signature was good.
Very good.
Then Renee remembered something.
Their mortgage refinance.
A closing packet.
Fourteen months earlier.
Julian had signed dozens of pages.
Copies had been delivered to the mansion.
Derek had visited three days later to pick up Zoey.
Renee looked at Daniel.
“He had signature samples.”
Daniel nodded.
The frame-up was not improvised.
Derek had been preparing documents for more than a year.
May you like
And if that was true, the lake was not the beginning of his plan.
It was where the plan finally became visible.
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