Chapter 5 - The Hidden Transfer.
Lucas read Amber's name three times before showing the email to Reyes.
The transfer had moved from his joint savings account into a newly opened account controlled by his sister.
The bank had initially masked the beneficiary because of a routine processing delay.
Now the fraud team had confirmed it.
"She stole from us," Lucas said.
Reyes did not correct him, but she remained precise.
"It appears money moved into an account she controls."
"Using Victoria's login."
"That is what we need to prove."
Lucas wanted certainty faster than the investigation could provide it.
Victoria wanted the same thing for different reasons.
When Lucas told her, she stared at the ceiling for a long time.
"She accused me of stealing while she was taking our money."
The hypocrisy hurt almost as much as the assault.
Victoria asked how Amber could have passed two-factor authentication.
Lucas remembered that Victoria's phone had disappeared immediately after the attack.
Reyes considered the possibility that Amber had accessed the device before burning it.
Victoria shook her head.
"The transfer was two days ago."
That meant the phone could not explain everything.
A nurse entered to check the fetal monitor, temporarily ending the conversation.
The baby's heart rate remained reassuring.
Victoria finally exhaled.
Lucas realized he had been holding his breath too.
After the nurse left, Victoria said something neither of them wanted to consider.
"Someone had my password before today."
Lucas thought about family gatherings, shared devices, and the trust portal Robert had mentioned.
Their marriage had never been organized around suspicion.
Passwords were written on a paper inside a locked desk drawer at home.
Only Lucas and Victoria knew the drawer code.
Or so they had believed.
Detective Reyes asked whether anyone else had stayed at the house recently.
Amber had stayed overnight six weeks earlier after a fight with her boyfriend.
Eleanor had a spare key for emergencies.
Robert had never needed one because the security system could generate temporary access codes.
The list grew faster than Lucas liked.
Later that afternoon, Reyes returned with footage from the Hale family office.
At 11:35 on the day of the assault, someone had entered Robert's private office using Amber's employee badge.
At 11:41, the hallway camera showed the same person leaving.
The camera angle did not capture the face clearly.
The person wore a dark coat with the hood raised.
Amber had been at Lucas's house at that exact time, according to the responding officers.
"So someone used her badge," Lucas said.
"Or a duplicate."
Reyes explained that the badge system allowed cloned credentials if someone had technical access.
Robert's assistant, Martin Voss, managed corporate security contractors and had administrator permissions.
Lucas knew Martin well enough to dislike him and not well enough to accuse him.
Martin had worked for Robert for twelve years.
He was discreet, efficient, and almost invisible in family arguments.
That made the new possibility more unsettling.
The next morning, Victoria was moved from acute observation to a private maternity room.
Doctors wanted at least another day of monitoring before discharge.
The physical danger had not vanished, but the immediate crisis had eased.
Lucas used the quieter hours to review every recent financial notice in their email accounts.
One message stood out.
Three days before the assault, Victoria had received a password-reset notification from the bank.
She had never opened it.
The message was marked as read anyway.
Lucas showed her.
"I didn't do that."
The bank confirmed the reset had been requested from an IP address associated with a hotel near the Hale office.
Security footage from the hotel required a warrant, but Reyes requested one.
Meanwhile, Amber's attorney released a statement to the prosecutor claiming the transfer was repayment for a personal loan Victoria had taken secretly.
Victoria laughed weakly when Lucas read it to her.
"I have never borrowed a dollar from Amber."
The statement included a screenshot of a supposed text exchange in which Victoria promised repayment.
Lucas recognized the formatting immediately.
It looked like a real conversation between Victoria and Amber.
The words were not real.
Reyes asked for exports from both phones and the cellular carrier.
Amber's phone showed the conversation.
Victoria's carrier records showed no matching messages.
Someone had fabricated evidence on Amber's device.
That discovery shifted the case again.
Either Amber had prepared an elaborate lie before the assault, or someone had prepared it for her.
In the late afternoon, a hospital administrator brought Lucas a sealed envelope left at the reception desk.
There was no sender name.
Inside was a photocopy of the missing photograph Victoria had described.
The image showed Victoria standing close to Dr. Nolan outside a medical building.
His hand appeared to be touching her arm.
A black marker had circled their faces.
On the back, someone had written a sentence in block letters.
Ask Lucas why his wife needed a secret doctor.
Victoria stared at the photograph and then at Lucas.
"They cropped out the fertility center sign."
Lucas looked at her.
The words struck him strangely.
"Fertility center?"
Victoria's expression changed from anger to fear.
"Luke, there is something I never told your family."
He waited.
She pressed a hand over her stomach.
"Dr. Nolan wasn't treating me because something was wrong with the baby."
May you like
Her voice dropped.
"He was helping me protect the truth about how this pregnancy began."
