Chapter 2 - THE NECKLACE DIDN’T BLOW UP THE CAR
The necklace did not contain a detonator.
That was the first thing Detective Mara Chen told Tyler when he started screaming that Evelyn had tried to kill him.
“She blew up my car!”
“No,” Mara said.
“She pressed something!”
“Yes.”
“And then my car exploded!”
Mara looked toward the smoking wreck.
“Those events occurred close together.”
Tyler stared at her.
“That’s the same thing.”
“No.”
It wasn’t.
The pendant activated an emergency panic protocol.
Nothing more.
Location transmission.
Audio capture.
Immediate police alert.
Remote security preservation.
The car explosion had another cause.
One investigators did not identify for several hours.
By then Evelyn was in surgery.
The bullet had passed through soft tissue near her lower ribs without striking a major organ.
Painful.
Dangerous.
Survivable.
Tyler’s pressure on the wound had worsened the bleeding but not changed the final prognosis.
The shooter was gone.
The red sports car was evidence.
And the items scattered across the snow made the entire case much uglier.
Mara stood beside a crime-scene technician while investigators cataloged everything.
Cash:
$186,000.
Three prepaid phones.
One unregistered pistol.
A parking receipt from a garage near the West Loop.
A black envelope containing photographs of Evelyn’s movements over the previous three weeks.
That was worse than the gun.
Because photographs meant planning.
Tyler claimed the items were planted.
“By who?”
“My stepmother.”
“She was shot.”
“She knew this was going to happen.”
“Then why did she step in front of the bullet?”
Tyler had no answer.
That question became the center of everything.
If Evelyn staged the attack, why take the bullet?
If Tyler staged it, why stand close enough to be hit?
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And if neither staged it—
who did?
