Novels by Rita J Emmanuel

Vivian's office was nothing like Marcus expected.He'd imagined mahogany furniture and leather-bound law books, maybe a view of the city skyline. Corporate lawyer aesthetics. Instead, he found himself in a converted warehouse in the industrial district, standing in a space that looked more like a detective's conspiracy room than a legal practice.One entire wall was covered in photographs, documents, and strings connecting them like a spider's web. Newspaper clippings about disappearances. Building permits for Hutchinson Development projects. Timelines marked in different colored markers. At the center of it all, a photograph of Victor Hutchinson Jr., his cold eyes staring out at the room."Welcome to fifteen years of obsession," Vivian said, setting her briefcase down on a battered desk that looked like it came from a government surplus sale. "Coffee?""Please." Marcus couldn't take his eyes off the wall. There were so many connections, so many threads. "You've been investigating him

"The building's owner is Victor Hutchinson Junior, who is the actual suspect in his father's murder." Vivian's voice was steel wrapped in silk. "My client is a building inspector who discovered evidence of a crime and attempted to report it. The building collapsed due to structural failure caused by Mr. Hutchinson's own negligence in burying a body in the foundation.""That's quite a story.""It's the truth. And we have evidence to prove it." Vivian pulled a flash drive from her briefcase, set it on the table. "This contains a forty-three-minute audio recording made by my client while trapped in the parking garage of Celestial Heights Tower. In it, Victor Hutchinson Junior explicitly threatens my client's life and admits to multiple murders spanning twenty years."Reeves stared at the flash drive like it was a live grenade."You'll find Mr. Hutchinson's voice clearly identifiable," Vivian continued. "You'll hear him order his security personnel to detain and harm my client. You'll hea

The police station interrogation room smelled like old coffee and industrial cleaner.Marcus sat at a metal table, a blanket around his shoulders despite the hospital having released him in clean scrubs. His left arm was in a sling. Bandages wrapped his hands where the ladder and debris had torn them. A dark purple bruise spread across his cheekbone where something had hit him during the collapse. He looked like he'd been through a war.He felt like it too.Detective Sarah Reeves sat across from him, a woman in her forties with sharp eyes and graying hair pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail. She'd let him sit here for twenty minutes without speaking. Just staring at him with that cop expression that was part judgment, part curiosity, part predator sizing up prey.Marcus stared back and said nothing.Finally, Reeves leaned forward. "You're not helping yourself by staying silent, Mr. Chen."Marcus said nothing."We have questions. Lots of questions. About how you knew where that body

Marcus felt tears stinging his eyes for the second time that day. "You do?""Victor Senior was my client. I drafted his trust documents three days before he disappeared. I've spent fifteen years trying to prove his son killed him." Her smile was thin and dangerous. "You just handed me the evidence I needed.""But the police said the concrete was fresh—""Because Hutchinson had it replaced three months ago. I have the work orders." She opened her briefcase, pulled out documents. "He knew the body was causing structural problems. So he had his crew dig it up, repour that section with fresh concrete, and rebury it. He thought that would stabilize the foundation and hide the evidence of tampering.""But the building still failed," Marcus said slowly."Because you can't just cover up violence like that. The original foundation layers underneath were still compromised. The chemical contamination from blood and bone had spread too far." Vivian leaned forward. "But here's what matters: I can

Marcus woke up to sirens and dust.He was buried. Not completely—there was air, somehow, a pocket of space created by the way the debris had fallen. But he couldn't move. Concrete pinned his legs. Rebar pressed against his chest. His left arm—already dislocated—was trapped under something heavy that he couldn't see in the darkness.He tried to breathe and tasted blood and concrete dust.His right hand still clutched his phone. The screen was shattered worse now, spiderwebbed with cracks, but it glowed faintly. Battery at 12%. The recording had stopped at some point during the collapse. Forty-three minutes of audio evidence.If he survived this, that recording would destroy Hutchinson.If he survived."Help," Marcus tried to shout, but it came out as a wheeze. His ribs hurt. Something was broken, probably several somethings. "Help!"Nothing. Just the distant wail of sirens and the groan of stressed metal somewhere above him.He lay there in the darkness, trapped under tons of debris, a

Marcus hit the bottom of the crack hard. Six feet wasn't far, but landing on broken concrete with a dislocated shoulder and a bad knee turned it into agony. His legs buckled. He rolled instinctively, years of childhood clumsiness teaching him how to fall without breaking bones, and came to rest inches from the skeleton. This close, he could see everything. The cave-in on the left side of the skull. The expensive fabric of what had once been a three-thousand-dollar suit, now rotted to rags. The platinum necklace still gleaming despite fifteen years in the dark. And underneath it all, the concrete—stained dark where blood had mixed with wet cement, creating a chemical bond that had literally poisoned the foundation from within. "Chen!" Davies's voice came from above, his flashlight beam cutting down into the crack. "Don't make this harder than it has to be!" Marcus didn't answer. He pressed his good hand against the stained concrete, right where Victor Hutchinson Sr.'s blood had so