Chapter 14 - JULIETTE'S PRICE
By dawn, every entrance to the Pierce estate had police surveillance.
Christopher expected Eleanor to return there.
She did not.
Instead, at 7:03 a.m., Juliette called him from an unknown number.
Christopher stared at the screen until Detective Ortiz nodded.
"Answer."
He put the call on speaker.
"Christopher?"
Juliette's voice sounded thin and exhausted.
"Where are you?"
"I cannot tell you."
"Then this conversation is over."
"Wait."
Christopher said nothing.
Juliette breathed shakily.
"I saw the board meeting."
"Congratulations."
"I know what the recording sounds like."
"It sounds like you participated in a plan to kill my daughter."
"I did not know they had drugged her."
Christopher's face went cold.
"Interesting choice of defense."
"I am telling you the truth."
"You pushed her into the pool."
Silence.
"Juliette."
She began to cry.
Christopher felt nothing.
"I pushed her."
Yvette closed her eyes.
Ortiz signaled for the call trace to continue.
Christopher's voice stayed low.
"Say it again."
"I pushed Emma into the pool."
"Why?"
Juliette sobbed once.
"Eleanor said Emma could swim."
"Emma was drugged."
"I did not know."
"You stood there while she stopped moving."
"I panicked."
"You did not even get your dress wet."
Juliette stopped crying.
The silence exposed her more effectively than denial.
Christopher continued.
"You told police you tried to grab her."
"I was afraid."
"You told the cameras she slipped."
"I was afraid."
"You told me she was an orphan."
Juliette's breath caught.
"Eleanor made me say that."
"No."
Christopher looked at the reports showing Juliette's eighteen months of surveillance.
"She paid you to say it."
Juliette whispered.
"You found the reports."
"All of them."
Another long silence.
"Then you know what she has on me."
"I know she paid your family's debt."
"That is not what she has."
Christopher looked at Ortiz.
The detective leaned closer.
"What does she have, Juliette?"
Juliette recognized the new voice.
"Is that the detective?"
"Yes."
"I want immunity."
Ortiz's expression did not change.
"You are admitting to pushing a sedated six-year-old into a swimming pool."
"I did not sedate her."
"That will matter to a prosecutor, but it does not erase the push."
"I can give you Eleanor."
"We already have Eleanor on tape."
"Not for Rachel."
Christopher's heart stopped.
"What do you know about Rachel?"
Juliette's voice dropped.
"More than you do."
Christopher nearly crushed the phone.
"Then speak."
"Not on the phone."
Ortiz mouthed, Keep her talking.
Christopher paced toward the window.
"You do not get to make demands."
"Eleanor knows I called you."
"How?"
"My father told her."
Christopher closed his eyes.
"Your father works for them."
"He has for years."
"Where is he?"
"Gone."
"Meaning?"
"He left me at a motel outside Albany last night and took the car."
Juliette's voice trembled.
"He said Eleanor would forgive him if he delivered the files I stole."
Ortiz wrote a note.
WHAT FILES?
Christopher asked.
Juliette exhaled.
"The original engagement agreement."
Christopher frowned.
"There was no engagement agreement."
"Not between you and me."
"Between who?"
"Me and Adrian."
The answer made Christopher feel dirty.
"You signed a contract to marry me."
"I signed a consulting agreement."
"Do not insult me with vocabulary."
"It required me to gain access to your household, report your emotional condition, and encourage marriage within eighteen months."
Christopher looked at Martin.
The attorney's face had hardened.
"And Emma?"
Juliette hesitated.
"The agreement called her a succession obstacle."
Yvette made a disgusted sound.
"What did you think that meant?"
Christopher asked.
"At first, legal removal from the trust."
"And later?"
Silence.
"Juliette."
"Later I knew Eleanor wanted her gone from the house."
"Gone how?"
"I did not ask."
"That was convenient."
"I was trapped."
Christopher's voice turned icy.
"Emma was trapped underwater."
Juliette cried again.
"I know."
"Do not compare your fear to hers."
Ortiz stepped in.
"Juliette, where is the original agreement now?"
"My father has the signed copy."
"You said you stole files."
"I kept scans."
"Where?"
"A storage locker."
"Location?"
Juliette named a facility outside Albany.
Ortiz sent officers immediately.
"What do the files say about Rachel?"
Juliette was quiet.
"Eleanor keeps a private archive on everyone she destroys."
Christopher thought of the hidden room.
"We found it."
"Not that one."
His pulse changed.
"There is another archive?"
"A portable one."
"Where?"
"Eleanor calls it the red file."
Yvette looked suddenly alert.
"I have heard that phrase."
Christopher turned.
"When?"
"Years ago."
Yvette frowned.
"Mrs. Pierce once told Daniel to bring the red file before a meeting with Dr. Hargrove."
Ortiz spoke into the phone.
"Juliette, what is in it?"
"Original documents she cannot risk leaving at the estate."
"Including?"
"Rachel's altered medical chart."
Christopher went still.
"How do you know?"
"Because Eleanor showed it to me."
"Why?"
"To scare me."
Juliette's voice cracked.
"She said Rachel once believed she could leave the family too."
Christopher felt rage rise behind his eyes.
"What else?"
"A signed statement from Dr. Hargrove."
"Saying?"
"I only saw the first page."
"What did it say?"
Juliette inhaled.
"That Rachel's death resulted from an intentional medication administration ordered outside the normal chain of care."
No one in the room moved.
Christopher's voice came out almost inaudible.
"Who ordered it?"
"The page did not say."
"Where is the red file now?"
"Eleanor took it when she left the estate."
Ortiz looked at the traffic image showing Eleanor returning south.
"Why is she coming back?"
Juliette answered immediately.
"Because of Evelyn."
Christopher stared at the phone.
"You know she is alive?"
"Eleanor told Adrian last night."
"How?"
"Someone at the care facility called her."
Ortiz's expression turned furious.
There was still a leak.
Juliette continued.
"Evelyn's founder share can destroy the control committee."
Martin nodded.
"That is true."
"Eleanor needs her signature before police lock down the trust."
Christopher looked at his grandmother's room down the hall.
"Signature on what?"
"A competency waiver."
Martin swore under his breath.
"If Evelyn signs a declaration transferring the founder share, Eleanor could argue she relinquished it voluntarily."
Christopher looked at Ortiz.
"She is coming here."
"Not if she knows police are here."
Juliette interrupted.
"She does not need to come herself."
"Who will?"
"Hargrove."
Everyone went still.
Juliette explained that Hargrove carried old medical power-of-attorney documents concerning Evelyn.
Some were forged.
Some were signed while Evelyn was heavily medicated.
If he could get into the facility and produce a competency assessment, they could create enough legal confusion to freeze Evelyn's vote.
"When?"
Ortiz asked.
"Today."
"Where are Eleanor and Adrian?"
"I do not know."
"Where is Hargrove?"
"I do not know."
Christopher's patience snapped.
"Then what exactly are you giving us?"
Juliette's breathing became faster.
"A warning."
"You want immunity for a warning?"
"I want protection."
"From whom?"
Juliette whispered.
"My father."
Christopher stared at the phone.
"You helped them target my daughter, and now you want me to save you."
"No."
Juliette's voice broke.
"I want you to save Emma again."
The line went dead.
The trace placed her near a bus terminal in Albany.
Police arrived nine minutes later.
Juliette was gone.
But the storage facility she named was real.
Inside locker 417, officers found a laptop, paper copies of her reports, the consulting agreement with Adrian, photographs of secret meetings, and a small audio recorder.
One recording had been made three nights before the pool incident.
Juliette's voice was clear.
"I will scare her, but I am not killing a child."
Eleanor answered.
"No one asked you to kill her."
Juliette sounded relieved.
Then Eleanor continued.
"You only need to put her where the water can do the rest."
Christopher closed his eyes.
The recording went on.
Juliette said she wanted another fifty thousand dollars.
Not because she was trapped.
Because she wanted more.
Christopher felt the last trace of sympathy disappear.
Then Adrian spoke in the background.
"If Christopher reaches her in time, we move to the hospital plan."
Juliette asked what that meant.
Adrian laughed.
"It means accidents are patient."
Ortiz stopped the recording.
"That gives us Juliette with knowledge of the pool plan before it happened."
Christopher looked at her.
"Find her."
"We will."
A uniformed officer entered the room.
"Detective, the facility director needs you downstairs."
Ortiz frowned.
"Why?"
"A physician just arrived with a court order to transfer Evelyn Ward for emergency psychiatric evaluation."
Christopher stood so quickly the chair tipped over.
"Name?"
The officer looked at his notebook.
"Dr. Samuel Hargrove."
Christopher ran.
He reached the lobby in time to see a man in a dark overcoat step backward through the front doors.
Samuel Hargrove was older than Christopher remembered, but unmistakable.
Their eyes met across the marble floor.
Hargrove turned and ran.
Ortiz shouted behind Christopher.
"Do not chase him!"
Christopher chased him.
Hargrove reached the parking lot and sprinted toward a black sedan.
The driver's door opened before he arrived.
A woman stepped out.
For one stunned second, Christopher thought it was Eleanor.
Then he saw the face clearly.
Juliette.
She held Hargrove's own phone in one hand.
And a red leather file in the other.
"Do not move!"
Ortiz shouted.
Juliette raised both hands.
Hargrove froze beside her.
Juliette looked directly at Christopher.
"I told you I could give you Eleanor."
Then she held out the red file.
May you like
"This is how."
