Instead of waiting, I reversed out of the driveway and drove straight toward the Briar Ridge Police Department while my mind shifted into the cold strategic mode that had won me contracts and crushed competitors.
During the drive I called my attorney, my accountant, and then my head of site security, a former Marine named Victor Sloan.
“Victor, meet me at the station and bring every surveillance tool we have,” I told him.
He paused before asking, “What is going on?”
“My wife and my partner are planning to kill me,” I replied evenly, “and I intend to prove it.”
At the station Detective Marissa Delgado listened closely as Ava repeated what she had heard with startling clarity.
She leaned forward and asked, “Does your wife believe you are still at home?”
“As far as she knows,” I answered, showing her the text message, “she thinks I am in my office.”
Marissa immediately dispatched officers for a welfare check while Victor arrived with cases of monitoring equipment and a grim expression.
In a conference room he opened a laptop and accessed hidden cameras I had installed during construction, systems Lauren never knew existed.
The footage showed Lauren entering the house alone and heading upstairs, then Blake arriving minutes later through the side entrance.
They stood close, speaking urgently, and Blake checked his watch while Lauren nodded with determined focus.
At one point she picked up my jacket from the bedroom chair and slipped it on as if rehearsing something.
Marissa studied the screen and murmured, “They are staging something.”
Police units reached the house shortly afterward and discovered signs of a fabricated accident in the garage, including a ladder positioned beneath a loosened ceiling beam and scattered tools meant to suggest a fall.
If I had been there, the scene would have told a convincing story.
Lauren texted again asking where I was, and I replied calmly that I had stepped out on business.
She responded with a single word, “Okay,” which felt colder than any argument we had ever had.
For the next three days Ava and I stayed in a secure hotel while Victor dug deeper into financial records and past connections.
What he uncovered chilled me more than the attempted murder.