Chapter 2 - The Stranger Was Still Upstairs
Richard locked Evelyn’s bedroom door.
“Maria, stay with my mother.”
Maria held her burned forearm beneath cool running water in the
adjoining bathroom while Evelyn reached for the bedside phone.
The line was dead.
Richard checked his cell.
No signal.
Vanessa stood near the broken soup bowl, suddenly much quieter than she
had been moments earlier.
“Who is he?”
“I told you, you don’t understand.”
“Then make me understand.”
A heavy thump came from the hallway.
Everyone froze.
Richard moved toward the door.
Vanessa grabbed his sleeve.
“Don’t.”
He stared at her hand until she released him.
“You know what he wants.”
Vanessa’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
“What?”
She looked at Evelyn.
“The report.”
Evelyn laughed bitterly.
“No. He wants what the report led me to.”
Richard turned to his mother.
“What did you find?”
Evelyn pointed toward the private investigator’s envelope.
“Page nineteen.”
Richard flipped through it.
Page nineteen contained no photograph.
Only a handwritten notation:
GARAGE WALL. NORTH CABINET. 11:42 P.M. SUBJECT REMOVED BLUE METAL BOX.
Richard looked up.
“What box?”
Evelyn whispered, “Your father’s.”
Richard remembered it.
A narrow steel document box his father, Charles Cole, kept in his home
office.
It disappeared after Charles died eight years earlier.
Richard had assumed attorneys removed it.
“What was inside?”
“I never knew.”
Vanessa suddenly said, “Records.”
Richard turned.
“You’ve seen them?”
“No.”
“But you know what they are.”
Before she answered, something scraped outside the bedroom.
The doorknob moved.
Slowly.
Maria stepped from the bathroom, pale.
“He’s here.”
Richard motioned everyone away.
The knob stopped.
Then a man’s voice came through the door.
“Vanessa.”
She closed her eyes.
“Open it.”
Richard’s anger sharpened.
“You brought him here?”
“No.”
“Then why does he think you’ll open the door?”
Vanessa did not answer.
The man spoke again.
“Vanessa, we are out of time.”
Evelyn looked at Richard.
“That’s him.”
Richard called emergency services from a backup satellite handset in
Evelyn’s medical cabinet.
The dispatcher confirmed police were on the way.
Then the stranger said something that made Richard stop.
“Tell Richard his father didn’t die alone.”
Silence.
Richard moved closer to the door.
“What did you say?”
Vanessa whispered, “Richard, don’t.”
He ignored her.
“Who are you?”
The stranger answered.
“My name is Michael Grant.”
Richard knew the surname.
Grant & Cole.
His father’s original construction company.
Michael Grant had been Charles’s business partner until twelve years
earlier.
Richard had been told Michael stole company funds and disappeared
overseas.
Evelyn struggled out of bed.
“No.”
Richard turned.
His mother looked terrified.
“Mom?”
“Do not believe him.”
Michael laughed from the hallway.
“That’s what Charles told everyone to say.”
Richard looked between Evelyn and Vanessa.
Too many people knew pieces he did not.
Then Michael said, “Ask your mother why your father’s watch was never
entered into the hospital inventory.”
Evelyn went still.
Richard remembered the night Charles died.
A reported heart attack in the mansion study.
Evelyn found him.
Vanessa had only been dating Richard for six months.
At least, that was what Richard believed.
Michael continued.
“Ask Vanessa why she was here that night.”
Richard slowly turned.
Vanessa’s face had lost all color.
“You told me you were in Boston.”
“I was supposed to be.”
“Were you in this house?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Yes.”
Richard stared.
Eight years of marriage suddenly shifted beneath his feet.
Then the bedroom window shattered.
Maria screamed.
A small object rolled across the carpet.
Not a weapon.
A flash drive.
A note was taped around it.
Richard picked it up.
PLAY CHARLES’S LAST RECORDING.
Michael’s footsteps ran down the hallway.
Police sirens sounded outside.
Richard stared at the drive.
Vanessa whispered, “Please don’t play that in front of Evelyn.”
His mother looked at her.
And Richard realized Vanessa was not afraid of what the recording would
May you like
reveal about herself.
She was afraid of what it would reveal about Evelyn.
