Chapter 5 - The Trap is Set
Four days later.
Ethan was discharged from the hospital under high-security protection. Michael brought his son not back to the townhouse in Lincoln Park, but to a private, gated estate in Lake Forest owned by his late wife's family—a location Lauren knew nothing about.
Two private security guards stood at the gates, while Detective Vance's team kept the property under constant surveillance.
Meanwhile, Michael and Miss Ruth returned to the Lincoln Park townhouse with a team of forensic police officers.
The house felt like a crime scene. Every room was being searched. Lauren’s designer clothes still hung in the master closet; her expensive perfumes still sat on the vanity. But behind a false panel in her walk-in wardrobe, officers discovered a dark stash: four different passports with different names, dozens of vials of unregulated pharmaceuticals, and a small notebook filled with detailed financial calculations regarding Ethan’s trust fund.
Michael sat at his desk in the home office, staring at the empty space where Lauren’s photograph used to sit.
Detective Vance walked in, closing the door behind him. "We tracked her financial movements. Before she vanished, she attempted to initiate a wire transfer of $250,000 from your joint checking account to an offshore bank in the Cayman Islands. The transfer was flagged and frozen because of the freeze we placed on your assets."
"So she’s desperate," Michael said, his tone no longer that of a defeated, broken man. His eyes were cold, sharp, and focused. "She needs cash to leave the country."
"Precisely," Detective Vance nodded. "She can't use her credit cards. Her photos are being broadcasted across state police networks. She’s trapped in the Chicago area without liquid capital."
Michael reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a small, leather-bound ledger. It was the master record for a safety deposit box held at a private bank on Michigan Avenue—containing $500,000 in bearer bonds and physical gold inherited from his family.
"She knows about this box," Michael said quietly. "She tried to get me to add her name to the signature card three weeks ago. I refused because it required a legal trust amendment."
"Where is the key?"
Michael pulled a heavy silver key from his pocket. "Right here. But she knows I keep a duplicate key hidden inside the hollowed-out mantelpiece in the living room."
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Detective Vance smiled—a cold, predatory expression. "She’ll come back for it. A woman like her won't run away broke if she thinks she can slip in and steal half a million dollars in untraceable bonds."
"Then let's make sure she comes," Michael said, his voice dropping into a lethal register. "I want to be the one who looks her in the eye when she realizes it's over."
