Chapter 5 - Beneath the Floorboards
The back door was sealed with a single strip of red evidence tape that had already been sliced through. Richard had clearly returned here after the incident.
I slipped inside, locking the door behind me.
The house was cold. The thermostat was off, leaving the air heavy with the stale, chemical odor of bleach mixing with rotting lilies that had wilted on the dining table. The kitchen looked orderly at a glance—chairs tucked in, counters wiped clean. But to a trained eye, the room screamed of frantic erasure.
The grout between the white ceramic floor tiles was unnaturally bleached, almost chalky. The lower trim of the kitchen island had fresh scratches where something heavy had scraped against it.
I pulled a tactical UV flashlight from my jacket pocket and clicked it on.
The blue beam illuminated the room, turning the darkness into an eerie fluorescent nightmare.
Bleach doesn't destroy blood; it only changes its chemical structure, making luminol harder to read, but high-frequency ultraviolet light still exposes the faint phosphor residue of cleaned organic matter.
The floor lit up.
A massive, sweeping bloom of faint purple stretched from the edge of the refrigerator to the base of the sink. Smears trailed toward the back door—drag marks. And there, tucked deep beneath the recessed toe-kick of the lower cabinetry where Richard’s mop couldn't reach, was a concentrated splatter of crimson droplets.
Sophia’s blood.
I swallowed the fury that threatened to boil over. Emotion gets you killed in an ambush; cold logic keeps you alive.
Why would Richard attack his own daughter? What document was so important that he would stand by while a thug beat her within an inch of her life?
Sophia was an accountant. She was meticulous, organized, and cautious. If someone was threatening her, she wouldn't just roll over. She would gather evidence. She would build a defense.
I walked into the small home office located off the living room. Her desk was neat, but her laptop was missing. Richard had probably taken it. The file cabinets had been rifled through; folders were slightly misaligned.
I looked up at the ceiling. In the corner of the crown molding was a tiny white smoke detector.
Except it wasn't just a smoke detector.
Four months ago, before I shipped out on my last rotation to Poland, Sophia had joked about the neighbors' mischievous dog digging up her flowerbeds. I had bought a commercial Wi-Fi security sensor disguised as an alarm unit and placed it in the office, but Sophia had laughed and said she’d move it somewhere useful.
I stepped onto the desk, reached up, and popped the plastic casing off the ceiling.
Inside the fake detector was a micro-SD card slot.
My heart leaped. The green LED indicator was dead—the battery had run out—but the micro-SD card was still seated inside.
I popped the tiny black chip out, sliding it into the protective case of my phone.
Before I could step down, my phone vibrated in my pocket.
It was an unknown number.
I answered, keeping my voice low. "Garrett."
"Captain Garrett Miller?" A woman's voice, brisk and professional.
"Speaking."
"This is Nurse Bradley from Mercy General ICU. We have a situation. You need to return to the hospital immediately."
My blood ran cold. "Is it Sophia? Has her condition changed?"
May you like
"Her vitals dropped sharply ten minutes ago," the nurse said, her voice strained. "Her primary attending physician was overridden. A private specialist arrived with power-of-attorney documents signed by her father. They are prepping her for transfer to a private facility upstate right now."
***
