Chapter 5 - The Greenhouse Phone

Hector wanted to wait until morning.

Naomi wanted a warrant.

I wanted to walk into the greenhouse with a hammer and tear apart every stone until I found the phone.

In the end, we did none of those things.

The greenhouse was on my property. The bench belonged to me. The hidden compartment, if one existed, had been installed without my knowledge.

Naomi allowed Hector to document the search while she remained on video with us.

At 1:17 in the morning, we entered under the warm glow of horticultural lamps.

Rows of orchids cast long shadows across the glass walls.

“Valeria said the stone bench,” I whispered.

Hector pointed.

There was only one.

We inspected it carefully.

Nothing underneath.

Then Hector pressed along the carved side panel.

A narrow piece of stone shifted.

Inside was a black phone wrapped in plastic.

My anger became almost calm.

“Bag it,” Naomi said through the video call.

Hector photographed the device in place, removed it, and sealed it.

We did not unlock it that night.

By morning, Naomi had contacted a former federal cyber investigator who now worked in private forensics.

His name was Daniel Cho, and he arrived at ten carrying two metal cases and drinking coffee like a man who had been awake since 1998.

“Do you know the passcode?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then I’m not promising speed.”

“Do it correctly.”

He glanced at me.

“That’s a much better sentence.”

While Daniel worked, I called the girls’ school and told them they would be staying home for several days.

Then I called a child therapist Naomi recommended.

Marisol listened from the breakfast table.

“You don’t need my permission,” she said.

“I know.”

“But you’re asking anyway.”

“Yes.”

She looked toward the girls, who were making pancakes with the cook.

“I think they should talk to someone.”

“I think so too.”

I lowered my voice.

“And you?”

“What about me?”

“You were targeted.”

“I’ve survived worse than a rich woman hiding perfume in my dresser.”

“That wasn’t all she did.”

Marisol’s expression hardened.

“No.”

There was something in the way she said it.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

She turned away.

“Not now.”

I almost pushed.

Then I remembered what control had already cost this house.

“All right.”

At noon, Daniel called us into the security room.

“The phone is open.”

Naomi arrived remotely on a secure screen.

Daniel projected the contents.

There were encrypted messaging apps, bank applications under false names, photographs of documents, and dozens of conversations with Lucien.

“Full name?” I asked.

Daniel opened a contact export.

Lucien Moreau.

Naomi’s face changed.

“You know him?”

“I know the name.”

“So do I,” I said.

Lucien Moreau was the founder of Ardent Crown Capital.

He had spent the last year trying to acquire a controlling position in one of my logistics companies.

I had rejected him twice.

Hector stared at the screen.

“So your fiancée was working with a corporate rival.”

Daniel shook his head.

“Not just working.”

He opened another folder.

Photographs showed Chloe and Lucien together in Paris, Monaco, New York.

Dates stretched back three years.

A year before Chloe and I met.

Naomi said, “She didn’t begin a relationship with him after meeting you.”

“No,” I said.

The truth settled like poison.

“She met me because of him.”

Daniel opened financial transfers.

Payments moved through shell companies into an account linked to Chloe.

Some were labeled CONSULTING.

Others had no description.

Then we saw a transfer dated six months earlier.

Five hundred thousand dollars.

The note read: PHASE TWO.

“What was phase two?” Hector asked.

Daniel searched the messages.

He found a conversation from the same week.

Lucien: REMOVE THE WIDOW’S MEMORY FROM THE HOUSE.

Chloe: THE GIRLS RESIST.

Lucien: THEN USE THE HOUSEKEEPER.

I stared at the screen.

The widow.

My wife, Elena.

Naomi said carefully, “Alexander, there may be another motive here.”

“For erasing photographs?”

“For destabilizing your family.”

Daniel scrolled further.

Then he stopped.

“Here.”

A photograph filled the monitor.

It showed Chloe standing in a hospital corridor.

The timestamp was four years old.

The date was burned into my memory.

The night Elena died.

I stood so quickly my chair rolled backward.

“No.”

Hector looked at me.

“You knew her then?”

“I had never seen her before two years ago.”

Daniel zoomed in.

Chloe was not alone.

Lucien stood beside her.

And between them was a man wearing hospital scrubs.

Under the image was a message sent months later.

Chloe: HE STILL THINKS THE ACCIDENT TOOK HER.

Lucien: GOOD.

I could hear nothing but my own breathing.

For two years, I had believed the worst thing Chloe had done was frighten my daughters.

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Now I was looking at evidence that she had entered my life long before I ever knew her name.

And the night my wife died was suddenly no longer closed.