Chapter 4

"Transaction declined. Insufficient funds."

When the ATM spat my card back out, I thought I had misheard.

I shoved it back in, entered my PIN, and checked the balance.

Zero.

Yesterday, there was sixty-three hundred dollars in there. Today, it was zero.

I checked my banking app. At 4:00 AM, a transaction read: *司法冻结 (Asset Seizure)*.

Reason: Suspected fraudulent funds. Under active police investigation.

I leaned against the cold metal of the ATM for thirty seconds, then my knees gave out, and I slid to the concrete floor.

The payroll data. The police had already flagged it.

My phone rang. An unknown number.

"Hello, is this Chloe Vance? This is State Investigator Miller. We need you to come down to the station at two o'clock this afternoon to answer some questions."

"What about?"

"We'd prefer to discuss that in person. See you at two."

At two o'clock, I was sitting in a sterile interrogation room. Across from me was the short-haired detective. A thick file lay open on the table between us.

"Do you recognize this man?" She slid a photo toward me.

It was the same swollen, pale face from the canal.

"That's... David Miller. The man you asked about yesterday."

"His name isn't David Miller." The detective flipped a page. "His real name is Arthur Pendelton. Thirty-nine years old. He was an investigative journalist. Since last year, he’d been secretly investigating chemical waste dumping in the south river canal."

My fingernails dug into my palms so hard it drew blood.

"The last GPS ping from his phone was two hundred yards behind your food plant, near the old drainage ditch."

"I don't know anything about that—"

"Chloe," the detective interrupted, her voice quiet but razor-sharp. "You created the identity of David Miller, didn't you?"

Silence.

"Three years of manual overrides. No fingerprint records. The Social Security number on his W-2 doesn't exist in the federal database."

She leaned in close.

"We know you've been pocketing a ghost salary. But right now, we don't care about the embezzlement."

"The problem is... the fake identity you created was used to cover up a murder."

I opened my mouth, but my throat tasted like copper.

"Do you know who did it?"

In that split second, everything clicked.

But I only let out a defeated sigh and whispered, "I don't know."

The detective stared at me for ten seconds before closing the folder.

"Go home. Think about it. Call me when you're ready to talk."

By the time I left the police station, the sun was setting.

I had three missed calls. All of them from the hospital.

"Ms. Vance, you missed the payment deadline—"

"My account was frozen. I'm trying to find another way—"

"Well... a woman came to visit Lily this afternoon."

"Who?"

"She said she was your co-worker. In her forties, carrying a designer bag. She brought a basket of fruit."

My blood ran cold.

"What did she say?"

"Nothing much. She just sat by the bed for a bit and stroked Lily's hair. But she left a message for you."

"What was it?"

"She said... 'Such a sweet little girl. It would be a shame if anything happened to her.'"

Brenda.

I gripped my phone so hard my knuckles turned white.

She touched Lily. She went to the hospital and touched my daughter's head.

This wasn't a reminder. This was a threat. She was telling me she could get to my kid anytime she wanted.

The nurse was still talking.

"Ms. Vance, you need to hurry with the payment. Lily ran a low-grade fever twice today, and her oxygen is dropping again. The surgeon said if the funds aren't cleared by tomorrow at five, we have to give her slot away."

"I understand. I'll have it tomorrow. I promise."

I hung up and stood on the curb outside the police station. The streetlights flickered on, reflecting in a puddle at my feet. My reflection was shattered into pieces.

My savings were frozen.

David's final paycheck was gone.

No one to borrow from.

I was fifteen thousand dollars short.

My daughter was burning up with a fever.

Brenda was stalking my kid at the hospital.

Richard was covering up a murder.

And the police were closing in on me.

Every single door was slammed shut.

Suddenly, my phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number on Snapchat. The friend request had only one sentence.

*“Chloe Vance, I'm Tori Pierce from the District Attorney's office. I can help you. Meet me tomorrow at 8:00 AM at the coffee shop behind the children's hospital.”*