Chapter 7: What Decker's Phone Revealed
Detective Reyes had printed everything on a conference table in a room that smelled like burnt coffee and old carpet.
Paige sat across from him with Clifford Holt beside her.
Neither of them spoke while Reyes laid the pages out.
"Decker worked for Whitmore for eleven years," Reyes said.
"Officially as a security consultant.
Unofficially—" He tapped the first page.
"—as the man who made problems disappear."
Paige looked at the page.
It was a series of text messages between two numbers, one labeled D and one labeled W.
W: Carver wedding confirmed for the 14th.
Compound ready?
D: Ready.
Delivery method confirmed.
Champagne service.
W: And the girl?
D: Photos are enough.
She won't talk.
W: Make sure.
She set the page down.
"The compound was delivered through a champagne bottle sent specifically to Raymond's table," Reyes said.
"The waiter who served it has been identified.
He's cooperating."
"He knew what he was delivering?" Holt asked.
"He knew it was something.
He was paid three thousand dollars in cash and told it was a prank." Reyes paused.
"He's not our target."
"And the power of attorney?" Holt said.
Reyes moved to a second set of pages.
"Prepared by a paralegal who used to work at a firm Whitmore dissolved four years ago.
She's been on his informal payroll since.
She's also cooperating." He looked at Paige.
"The forgery was meant to give Whitmore's people access to Raymond's accounts for a window of roughly seventy-two hours.
Long enough to liquidate the Las Vegas properties through a series of shell transactions that would have been nearly impossible to reverse."
"How much would he have taken?" Paige asked.
"Our estimate is between forty and sixty million dollars."
Holt made a sound that wasn't quite a word.
"There's more," Reyes said.
He slid a photograph across the table.
It was a still image from a security camera.
A hotel corridor.
The timestamp read three months before the wedding.
Paige recognized the hallway immediately — the Brickell hotel.
She was in the frame, near the elevator, and Raymond was beside her.
But the angle showed something the other photos didn't.
Her body was turned away from him.
Her hand was on the elevator button.
Raymond's hand was on her shoulder and she was visibly leaning away from it.
"This is from the hotel's own security system," Reyes said.
"Decker had the other photos — the ones taken from a different angle that made it look like something else.
But the hotel footage tells the real story."
"You pulled it from the hotel?"
"Raymond's attorney requested it this morning." Reyes glanced at Holt.
"On Raymond's instruction."
Paige looked at the photograph for a long moment.
"He called you from the ICU?" she asked Holt.
"At seven this morning," Holt said quietly.
"He was very clear about what he wanted."
She looked back at the image.
Her own face, frozen in a camera frame, three months ago.
Trying to get to the elevator.
"What happens now?" she asked Reyes.
"Whitmore was taken in for questioning an hour ago.
His attorneys are already fighting it, but the recording you made yesterday, combined with Decker's phone, the waiter's statement, and the paralegal's cooperation — it's enough to hold him." Reyes folded his hands on the table.
"The DA's office is reviewing charges.
Conspiracy, fraud, tampering.
Possibly more, depending on what else comes out of Decker's files."
"Will it stick?"
"Whitmore has money and lawyers.
It won't be fast." Reyes met her eyes.
"But yes.
It will stick."
Paige sat back in her chair.
Holt was making notes beside her.
The pages were spread across the table — text messages, bank records, a forged signature, a photograph that showed the truth.
"There's one more thing," Reyes said.
He hesitated for the first time since she'd met him.
"Gavin Marsh."
She looked up.
"He came in voluntarily last night.
Gave a full statement.
He's confirmed everything about Whitmore's approach, the arrangement with Raymond, and the setup of the wedding." Reyes paused.
"He also told us something he hadn't told you."
"What?"
"The original gambling debt.
The one Whitmore used to pressure Raymond into the arrangement with your stepfather." Reyes looked at her carefully.
"It wasn't real.
Whitmore manufactured it.
The card game was staged.
Gavin didn't lose that money gambling — it was taken from him in a setup designed specifically to create leverage over someone close to you."
The room was very quiet.
"Whitmore targeted me specifically," she said.
"We believe so.
Yes."
She thought about her mother's medical bills.
The phone calls from collectors.
Gavin's face the night he told her about the debt.
How broken he had looked.
"He manufactured a crisis," she said, "to force me into a marriage, to get close enough to Raymond to take everything."
"That's our current theory."
She looked at the text messages on the table.
W and D, back and forth, planning it all in shorthand like it was a logistics problem.
"He used everyone," she said.
"Raymond.
Gavin.
Me.
All of us."
"Yes," Reyes said.
"He did."
Her phone buzzed on the table.
She turned it over.
A message from an unknown number — but different from before.
A Miami area code.
*"This is Marcus Decker.
I want to talk to you directly.
There's something in those files Reyes hasn't shown you yet."*
She looked up at Reyes.
He was already reading it over her shoulder.
May you like
His expression didn't change, but his hand moved to his own phone.
"Don't reply," he said.
