Chapter 5 - THE FLOOR PLAN I SHOULD NOT HAVE OPENED
William denied creating the amendment.
His account had been accessed while he attended a board meeting in Boston. Travel records confirmed it.
Someone was using our identities in different parts of the mansion.
Detective Brooks ordered me not to enter any Sterling system.
I disobeyed.
The housekeeping cloud still recognized my password. I wanted the weekly maintenance chart because I remembered a contractor repairing the ballroom vent.
I logged in from my apartment.
The chart appeared for less than a minute.
A hidden attachment showed an older floor plan with service tunnels connecting the ballroom, east stairs, and private garage.
I took photographs of the screen.
Then every file vanished.
The next morning the Sterling attorneys accused me of deleting estate records.
My login was the last recorded access.
I had given Isabella’s defense exactly what it needed: proof that I touched evidence outside police supervision.
Detective Brooks was furious.
“You may have found something useful. You also damaged our ability to prove who altered it.”
“I was trying to help Ethan.”
“Then stop making yourself the easiest person to blame.”
The maintenance contractor was identified as Russell Dean. He denied opening the vent and said Adrian supervised all work near the ballroom.
Adrian produced invoices supporting routine repairs.
No mention of the hidden panel.
My photographs showed the service tunnel, but the image quality was too poor to authenticate without the original file.
Then Ethan remembered a sound.
Before Isabella placed him inside, a printer had been running somewhere beyond the wall.
The mansion’s large document printer sat inside the executive library.
Its log showed sixty-three pages printed that morning.
Adrian’s security report claimed the library was empty.
The printer record listed one document title:
MISSING CHILD RESPONSE PACKAGE.
The file had been deleted.
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The user who printed it was Isabella Sterling.
By evening, she filed an affidavit saying I had remotely accessed her account and created it.
