Chapter 5 - Lily’s Clue
The following morning, the sun broke through the misty clouds over the Westchester hills.
I was sitting in the glass conservatory on the east side of the mansion, watching Lily color in a storybook on the small marble table. Marcus had insisted that I no longer perform housekeeping duties, placing me on a paid administrative leave while his legal team finalized the case against the Cains.
"Mommy, look!" Lily giggled, holding up a small black plastic object.
I frowned, setting my coffee cup down. "What do you have there, sweetie?"
"Found it in the plants!" she said happily, pointing toward a large potted fiddle-leaf fig tree near the glass wall. "It was hiding!"
I walked over and took the object from her hands. It was a high-grade, encrypted USB thumb drive with a small red LED light blinking on the side.
My heart skipped a beat.
Just then, Marcus walked into the conservatory, wearing a tailored navy suit, holding a stack of briefing folders. He paused when he saw the expression on my face.
"Maya? What's wrong?"
"Lily found this," I said, holding out the drive. "In the potted tree near the window."
Marcus took the drive, his brows furrowing as he examined the tiny serial number etched on the metal casing. "This is a physical hardware key. It’s used to bypass two-factor authentication on secure banking servers."
He immediately pulled out his encrypted phone and dialed Michael, his chief security analyst. "Michael, get up to the conservatory now. Bring a clean analytical laptop."
Within three minutes, Michael had plugged the drive into an isolated laptop. Lines of green code flooded the screen before resolving into a massive directory of documents.
"My God, Boss," Michael breathed, his eyes wide. "This isn't just foundation money. This is a complete blueprint of the Cain family's illegal shell companies across Panama and Switzerland."
Marcus leaned over the table, his face turning to stone. "Who put this drive in the plant?"
"Vanessa," Michael said, pointing to a timestamp on the drive's internal log. "She hid it here two days ago during the party, right before she was arrested. She was planning to retrieve it later or have one of her co-conspirators pick it up."
Marcus looked down at Lily, who was busy using a pink crayon to draw a sun in her book.
"Your daughter just handed us the ironclad evidence we needed to dismantle the entire Cain organization," Marcus said, a slow, triumphant smile spreading across his face. He dropped down on one knee beside Lily’s small chair. "Lily Vance, you are officially the best investigator in New York."
May you like
Lily beamed, holding up her pink crayon. "I get a cookie?"
Marcus let out a loud, rich laugh—a sound I had never heard in the eight months I worked in his house. "Sweetheart, you can have every cookie in the kitchen."
