Rain drizzled down the windows of Ryan Carter's small, cluttered office. It was after midnight, but the three of them—Emma, Ryan, and Sophia—had gathered again, hunched around a glowing screen. The hum of the old computer filled the silence as Ryan navigated through folders of footage.
"Alright," he said. "This is from the day Daniel supposedly borrowed the money from Salazar."
Emma's heart picked up speed.
The surveillance footage came from a fixed security camera in the back corner of a dingy, windowless office. The timestamp blinked in the top corner—two months ago.
Onscreen, Daniel entered.
He moved stiffly. His body language was wrong—jittery, tense. He looked over his shoulder multiple times, as if expecting to be followed.
"That's not how Daniel walks," Emma whispered.
They watched as he approached a desk. Victor Salazar sat on the other side, a hulking presence even through the grainy footage.
The man Emma believed to be Daniel handed over documents, leaning in to say something inaudible.
Ryan leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "Pause it."
Emma froze the frame.
Ryan pointed at the screen. "Look at his hands."
Emma stared.
They were shaking.
Daniel—her Daniel—had never shaken under pressure. He was calm. Controlled. Always.
But the man in the footage looked like he was about to fall apart.
Ryan rewound slightly, then zoomed in.
A second figure stood near the doorway—half in shadow, tall, watchful. The face was obscured.
Sophia frowned. "Who is that?"
Ryan enhanced the image frame by frame, though the quality remained poor.
Emma's breath caught.
A shape. A profile. Something too familiar.
She whispered, "No…"
The figure leaned forward just slightly—just enough for Emma to catch a glimpse of his outline. His posture. His height.
She didn't say it aloud, but the name burned in her mind like a brand.
She had seen that figure before.
Not on video. Not in a photo.
In person.
And recently.
The next day, Emma drove out to the Carter family estate once again, dread curling in her gut like smoke.
The same perfectly manicured lawn. The same stillness.
She approached the house with determination, clutching a folder filled with copies of evidence. She rang the bell, and within seconds, Martha answered.
Her expression instantly darkened.
"What more do you want, Emma?" she said bitterly.
Emma didn't flinch. "I came to show you what I've found."
Frank Carter joined his wife in the doorway, saying nothing. Cold eyes stared her down.
Emma held out the file. "Daniel was trying to leave the country. He wired a large sum of money to an offshore account. He was scared. And someone was watching him the day he borrowed that money."
Frank glanced at the documents but refused to take them.
Behind them, footsteps echoed.
Emma looked past them.
Liam Carter stood in the hallway.
Daniel's younger brother.
He was tall, lean, and had the same dark eyes.
He froze when he saw her. His expression flickered—surprise, discomfort… fear.
"Liam," Emma said, her voice calm but probing.
He cleared his throat. "Emma."
She stepped back slightly, getting a better look at him. The same height. Same build.
A memory of the grainy figure in the video snapped to the surface.
"You were close with Daniel, weren't you?" she asked.
"Yeah," Liam said, avoiding her gaze. "We talked a lot."
He shifted, subtly edging back toward the shadows of the hallway.
Emma narrowed her eyes. Something wasn't right.
"Emma," Martha said suddenly, stepping between her and Liam. "If this is all, I think it's time for you to go."
Emma didn't argue. "Of course. Thank you for your time."
She turned to leave—but not before catching Liam's uneasy glance.
A glance that didn't say grief.
It said guilt.
That night, back at Ryan's office, Emma paced like a caged animal.
"It was him," she said. "I saw it in his face. I saw it in his body language. Liam is the same height as Daniel. The same build. It could have been him in that video."
Ryan leaned over his laptop. "You're saying… it wasn't Daniel who borrowed the money."
"It's possible," Emma replied. "It would explain why 'Daniel' was acting so strange. Why he seemed afraid."
Sophia folded her arms. "And if that's true, we've been chasing the wrong person."
Ryan opened another window on his screen. "I'll pull Liam's activity logs—phone records, credit cards, the works. If he disappeared for even a day around the time of that loan, I'll find it."
Emma nodded slowly.
"If Liam pretended to be Daniel," she said, "then everything changes."
Ryan's jaw tightened. "Then we might be dealing with more than just a loan shark."