Chapter 2 - THE HOLLOW BENEATH THE FLOORBOARDS
My nurse training teaches you to triage—you deal with the immediate life-threatening bleeding before you look at the broken bones.
Right now, the immediate bleeding was the girl in front of me. She had been living under intense psychological terrorism in her own home, used as a pawn by her mother to execute a sinister plot I didn't yet fully understand.
I took the micro-recorder, the flash drive, and the paper test, sliding them deep into the inner pocket of my leather work jacket.
"Lumi," I said softly, crouching down in front of her. "Have you eaten anything today? Real food?"
She shook her head. "She told me not to eat until she checked the camera to see if I cried."
A cold rage burned deep in my stomach, but I kept my face utterly calm. "Okay. We're going to make a sandwich. You're going to eat. And then you're going to show me where that green box is."
While Lumi sat at the kitchen island eating a ham sandwich under the yellow beam of my emergency flashlight, I walked upstairs to my own home office. I retrieved my personal medical tablet—one that wasn't connected to the home Wi-Fi—and backed up the audio recording from the micro-cassette and the files on the flash drive.
When I plugged the flash drive into the tablet, three PDF files appeared on the screen.
My eyes scanned the titles:
Falkner_Estate_Trust_Agreement_2021.pdf
Julian_Falkner_Death_Certificate_Draft.pdf
Gideon_Vale_Life_Insurance_Policy.pdf
I opened the third file.
My breath caught in my throat. A two-million-dollar life insurance policy had been opened in my name four weeks ago—just two weeks after our wedding. It contained my forged signature, listing Maris as the sole beneficiary. But it wasn't just a standard policy. It had a specific clause: Double indemnity payout in the event of accidental death occurring during an active criminal investigation or domestic dispute.
Maris wasn't just framing me for child abuse to get a divorce settlement.
She was laying the groundwork for a tragic, highly publicized domestic event where an "abusive stepfather" met a violent end during a confrontation, leaving her with two million dollars from my policy and access to whatever money was tied to her late husband's estate.
"Gideon?" Lumi’s soft voice called out from the dark doorway.
I closed the tablet screen immediately, turning around to smile at her. "Right here, sweetheart."
She held a small brass key in her hand—one she must have pulled from the lining of her stuffed bear.
"The green box isn't in the basement," Lumi whispered, pointing toward the floor beneath my own desk. "It’s under your feet."
I looked down at the dark oak floorboards of the home office.
I pushed my heavy wooden desk to the side, peeling back the thick Persian rug I had brought from my old apartment. There, cut cleanly into the grain of the subfloor, was a square hatch, secured with a brass padlock that matched the key in Lumi's hand.
I took the small brass key, inserted it into the lock, and turned it.
The lock clicked open with a heavy metallic snap.
I lifted the wooden panel. Sitting in the dark joist space beneath the floor was a heavy, waterproof green steel military box.
Inside the box were three thick leather-bound journals, a stack of medical records from a hospital in San Francisco, and a sealed manila envelope labeled: In the Event of My Sudden Incapacitation - Property of Dr. Julian Falkner.
Julian Falkner—Lumi's biological father.
He hadn't been an accountant as Maris had told me. He had been a chief toxicologist at a major pharmaceutical research facility in California.
I tore open the manila envelope, unfolding the handwritten sheets inside. The ink was frantic, written by a man who knew his time was running out.
"To whoever finds this: My wife, Maris Laurent-Falkner, has been systematically administering low-dose synthetic neurotoxins to my daily meals. The compound—a modified organophosphate—causes gradual autonomic failure, mimicking an unexpected massive cardiac arrest. I discovered the vials in her private vanity three days ago. If you are reading this, I am already dead, and she has secured the trust fund intended for my daughter, Lumi. Do not let her near another family..."
I sat on the floor, the paper shaking in my hand.
Julian Falkner hadn't died of a heart attack. He had been murdered.
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And right now, Maris was on a "business trip" in Chicago—the very same city where my hospital’s regional union headquarters was holding its annual medical supply conference.
The house phone in the hall suddenly rang, its sharp chime cutting through the quiet dark of the house.
