Chapter 4 - The Digital Trail
By 2:00 PM, Tessa was discharged from the hospital under strict orders to continue her oral antibiotic regimen.
She didn't go back to the suburban house she shared with Derek. She knew that returning there meant walking into a fortress controlled by his security cameras, his smart locks, and his home network. Instead, she went straight to Clara’s small, two-bedroom apartment on the east side of the city.
The living room had been turned into a war room.
Clara had set up two laptops on the dining table, surrounded by legal pads, highlighters, and printed stacks of bank statements, phone bills, and medical records.
"Alright," Clara said, pushing a mug of tea into Tessa’s hands. "I called an old friend of mine from college—Mark Brody. He’s a digital forensics analyst who works for civil litigation firms. He’s looking at the video that was posted to social media right now."
Tessa sat down at the table, opening her own laptop. "Did he find anything?"
"The video on TikTok and X was posted by an account named @ParentalWatchdog2026," Clara explained, pointing to her screen. "The original video file uploaded to the platform was compressed, but Mark pulled the metadata from the raw video stream before the platform strip removed it."
"And?"
"The file name of the video uploaded to the site was Owlet_Cam_Nursery_20260821_212412_CLIP01.mp4," Clara said. "That’s the default naming format for files downloaded directly using the Owlet Master Admin Desktop Application. It’s not the format used when you record a screen on an iPhone."
Tessa’s eyes narrowed. "Derek always claimed he only had the mobile app on his phone."
"Mark ran a network trace on the IP address that accessed the Owlet desktop cloud server at 9:28 PM last night," Clara continued, sliding a printout across the table. "The request came from a residential IP address registered to an apartment at 1422 North Elm Street, Unit 4B."
Tessa stared at the address. "That’s not Derek’s office. And that’s not our house."
"Who lives at 1422 North Elm Street?" Clara asked.
Tessa pulled up her phone, her fingers moving rapidly across the keyboard as she searched through Derek’s company organizational chart, which was publicly available on his firm’s website.
She scrolled past the executive vice presidents, past the senior engineers, down to the marketing and operations department.
There she was.
Sarah Miller - Senior Brand Strategist & Public Relations Manager.
Tessa clicked on Sarah Miller’s public real estate records. Her primary residence was listed as 1422 North Elm Street, Unit 4B.
"Sarah Miller," Tessa whispered, her blood turning to liquid ice. "She’s his PR manager. She handles crisis management and brand strategy for his tech firm."
"It gets worse," Clara said softly. "I had Mark look into the social media accounts that amplified the video during the first fifteen minutes after it was posted. Over four hundred accounts retweeted and commented within ninety seconds. They weren't real people, Tess. They were an automated bot farm—a paid distribution network used by corporate PR firms to manufacture viral outrage."
Tessa leaned back in her chair, staring at the screen. The pieces of the puzzle were locking together with horrifying precision.
This wasn't just a bitter husband trying to gain leverage in a divorce. This was a calculated, professional public relations execution. Derek hadn't just used his own position—he had weaponized his firm's corporate PR resources to manufacture a fake scandal, frame his wife as a monstrous, neglectful mother, and ruin her public reputation beyond repair before she ever set foot in a courtroom.
"He didn't just want custody," Tessa said, her voice dropping into an icy register. "He wanted to destroy my credibility so completely that if I ever spoke out about his financial fraud or his affair, no one in the world would ever believe a single word I said."
"What financial fraud?" Clara asked, startled.
Tessa unlocked her encrypted cloud drive—a hidden drive she had created months ago, long before Jamie was born.
"Three months ago," Tessa said, "I found a secondary bank statement in our home mailbox by mistake. It was an offshore account in the Cayman Islands under the name Rowan Holdings LLC. Derek had been transferring fifty thousand dollars a month out of his primary salary account into that shell company for over a year."
She turned the laptop toward Clara. "He wasn't just planning to strip me of custody, Clara. He’s planning to dump his stock options, hide his assets offshore, and leave me with zero spousal support, zero property, and a ruined reputation."
The front door of the apartment knocked sharply.
Tessa and Clara both jumped.
Clara walked to the door, checking the peephole before pulling it open.
Standing in the hallway was a tall, sharp-featured woman in a navy wool coat, holding a thick leather briefcase.
"Tessa Rowan?" the woman asked, looking past Clara into the apartment.
"Yes," Tessa said, standing up from the table. "Who are you?"
"My name is Victoria Vance," the woman said, stepping inside and pulling a business card from her coat pocket. "I am a senior partner at Vance, Sterling & Associates."
Tessa frowned. "Vance? Derek’s lawyer is Richard Vance."
"Richard is my brother," Victoria said, her lips curling into a cold, razor-sharp smile. "And he is an arrogant, unethical idiot. I saw the viral video last night, Mrs. Rowan. And ten minutes ago, my team pulled the public court filings for your emergency custody hearing tomorrow morning."
May you like
She walked over to the table, set her briefcase down, and popped the brass latches open.
"Your husband and my brother are about to commit gross fraud against the family court," Victoria said calmly. "And I am going to help you destroy them."
