Chapter 4 - The Golden Child’s Secret
Before I could tear down my mother, I needed to isolate her. And the weakest link in her armor had always been her golden child.
Jessica’s life was an illusion built on a foundation of credit card debt and my mother’s stolen money. Her fiancé, a junior partner at a local real estate firm named Brad, was obsessed with status. If Jessica’s pedigree was tarnished, Brad would drop her faster than a bad investment.
Using the burner phone’s encrypted data tether, I logged into an old Instagram account I had created under a pseudonym years ago—an account I used to archive Jessica’s public slip-ups. Jessica was vain; she posted everything. Every brunch, every outfit, every location tag.
On the third night after the fire, Jessica posted a story. She was at an upscale cocktail lounge in downtown Columbus, wearing a black designer dress. The caption read: "Finding moments of peace amidst the storm. Thank you for all the love, everyone. #Grief #Sisterhood."
She was drinking a French 75 and smiling. The fire had been three days ago. Her only sister was supposedly a charcoal briquette, and she was out drinking seventy-dollar cocktails.
"She’s at The Paradigm Lounge," I told Marcus. "I'm going there."
"Caitlyn, absolutely not," Marcus stood up, blocking the door. "You're legally dead right now. If someone sees you—"
"No one will recognize me," I interrupted, looking at myself in the cracked mirror over the sink.
I had cut my long, dark hair into a jagged, uneven bob with Marcus's tactical scissors. My face was pale, devoid of makeup, and I was wearing a oversized gray hoodie I’d borrowed from his car. With dark circles under my eyes and a heavy limp, I looked like a stray animal, not the neat, quiet Caitlyn Monroe who used to fold her shirts according to color.
"I need her phone, Marcus," I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. "Jessica’s phone contains the group chat between her and my mother from the night of the fire. They always text when they're in separate rooms because my mother hates 'unrefined shouting.' If they planned the fire, the blueprint is in that phone."
Marcus stared at me for a long moment, evaluating the risk. Finally, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, black USB device.
"This is a proximity cloner," he said. "If you can get within three feet of her phone while her Bluetooth is active, it will clone her local data cache, including encrypted messaging apps, within ninety seconds. But you have to be close. And you cannot let her see your face."
Ten minutes later, I was in the back of Marcus’s unmarked sedan, heading toward the neon lights of downtown Columbus.
The Paradigm Lounge was packed with the city’s young elite. I slipped through the side entrance near the restrooms, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The noise was a wall of bass and clinking glass.
I spotted her immediately. Jessica was sitting at a VIP booth near the back, surrounded by three of her blonde, perfectly groomed friends. Brad was there too, his arm wrapped tightly around her waist, looking suitably solemn whenever someone walked past to offer their condolences.
Jessica’s phone was sitting on the marble tabletop, right next to her cocktail glass.
I moved closer, blending into the crowd near the bar area just behind her booth. The distance was roughly four feet. I pulled the USB device out of my pocket and pressed the single button on its side. A tiny blue light began to pulse.
30 seconds.
Jessica laughed at something Brad said, a sharp, whinnying sound that made my skin crawl. "Honestly, the insurance payout on the house is going to let us put a down payment on the New Albany property," she whispered to her friend sitting next to her, her voice cutting through the ambient noise. "It’s a blessing in disguise, really. The house had so much negative energy because of Caitlyn anyway."
My fingers tightened around the cloner until my knuckles turned white. A blessing in disguise.
60 seconds.
Suddenly, Brad stood up. "I’m going to grab another round, babe. You want the same?"
"Yes, please, honey," Jessica cooed, picking up her phone to check her notifications.
No, no, no. If she used the phone, the data transmission might interrupt the cloning process.
I had to distract her.
I bumped intentionally into a passing waiter carrying a tray of dirty martini glasses. The waiter stumbled, the glasses crashing directly onto the back of Jessica’s booth. Green olives and sticky alcohol rained down over her black designer dress.
"Oh my God!" Jessica shrieked, jumping to her feet, dropping her phone back onto the table as she swatted at her skirt. "Are you blind? This is Chanel!"
The chaos was perfect. The blue light on my device turned a solid, steady green.
100% complete.
I slipped the cloner back into my pocket and turned to walk away, but my sprained ankle gave out slightly, causing me to stumble against the edge of the bar.
"Hey!" Jessica’s voice rang out over the din of the restaurant. "Watch where you’re going!"
May you like
I kept my head down, pulling the hood lower over my face, and pushed through the exit doors into the cool night air. But just before the door closed, I caught a glimpse of Jessica’s face in the mirror near the entry.
She wasn't looking at her dress anymore. She was staring at my retreating back, her expression shifting from anger to a sudden, terrifying confusion. She had recognized the limp.
