Chapter 7 - THE PERSON CLAIRE TRUSTED
No one moved.
Brennan stood with his back against the locked door, breathing hard.
Lena Ortiz kept one hand near her holster.
Mara slowly lowered her phone.
Nora stared at Brennan as if she were trying to decide whether he had brought danger into the room or was warning them about it.
Claire moved closer to Ethan.
"What do you mean someone told him?"
Brennan wiped blood from his temple.
"I left county headquarters through the south garage."
"Collins's men were waiting there."
Lena's eyes narrowed.
"Men?"
"Two deputies and a civilian."
"Did you recognize the civilian?"
"No."
Brennan looked around the room.
"They knew I sent Claire to this address."
Nora shook her head.
"You never told us the address until we were already driving."
"Correct."
"Then the leak could be your phone."
"I checked it."
Mara crossed her arms.
"People who are being tracked usually do not know they are being tracked."
Brennan ignored the remark.
"Collins also knew you had opened the second compartment in Box 314."
That silenced everyone.
Ethan looked toward the ceiling.
"Camera?"
Lena shook her head.
"I swept this office last week."
"Then maybe the box has a tracker."
Mara stood.
"That is possible."
They emptied Box 314 onto the table.
Ethan ran his fingers along the seams.
Nora inspected the underside.
Lena used a handheld scanner from a drawer.
It chirped near the metal latch.
She pried away a thin strip of felt.
A device smaller than a coin was glued beneath it.
Brennan exhaled.
"There is your leak."
Claire stared at the tracker.
"Richard put it there Thursday."
Mara shook her head.
"Maybe."
"Who else?"
"The person your mother was afraid of."
Claire looked back at the corrupted video.
The phrase returned to her.
Claire trusts them completely.
She scanned the people in the room.
Nora had known Evelyn for years.
Brennan had arrived after the funeral.
Lena had been introduced that morning.
Mara was practically a stranger.
None of them fit the word completely.
Then Claire's face changed.
"Rebecca."
Ethan looked at her.
"Aunt Rebecca?"
Rebecca Lane was not actually Ethan's aunt.
She had been Claire's closest friend since college.
She had attended every birthday Ethan could remember.
She had a key to the Parker house.
She knew where Claire kept emergency documents.
She knew Richard's schedule.
And she had not been at the funeral.
Claire grabbed the temporary phone.
"She texted me Wednesday."
"What did she say?" Nora asked.
Claire searched through a cloud backup she had restored earlier.
The message appeared.
DINNER TOMORROW?
Claire had answered.
CAN'T. RICHARD IS ACTING STRANGE. CALL YOU LATER.
Rebecca had replied with a heart.
That was all.
Ethan shook his head.
"She would not help Richard."
Claire looked at him.
"I do not want to believe she would."
"She hates him."
"She says she hates him."
The distinction hurt Ethan more than he expected.
Mara searched Rebecca Lane's name.
"She works in communications for Parker Biomedical."
Claire nodded.
"She has for eleven years."
Nora looked at the trust files.
"Which means she has access to internal corporate calendars, board schedules, and public statements."
Lena's expression hardened.
"Including the announcement of Claire's death."
Claire searched her messages.
Rebecca had sent no text after Thursday afternoon.
No message after Claire's supposed death.
No message to Ethan.
Nothing.
"She did not even ask where Ethan was," Claire whispered.
Ethan looked away.
He had not noticed that until now.
Rebecca normally checked on him constantly.
When Claire traveled, Rebecca sent him terrible jokes and reminders about homework.
After his mother's supposed death, she had vanished.
Brennan took out his phone.
"We need to locate her."
Lena stopped him.
"Not through police channels."
"Why?"
"Because Collins still has access."
Mara searched public records.
Rebecca owned a condominium near the river.
Lena sent two state investigators who were not connected to the county.
While they waited, Claire returned to Evelyn's files.
She opened the folder labeled RICHARD.
It contained photographs of Richard meeting Victor Sloane at restaurants and parking garages.
There were copies of wire transfers into Richard's private account.
The payments began eleven months earlier.
The amounts were modest at first.
Ten thousand.
Twenty-five thousand.
Then one transfer for two hundred thousand dollars arrived three days before Claire was drugged.
The memo line read CONSULTING COMPLETION.
Claire looked sick.
"He sold me."
Nora corrected her gently.
"He was paid for something."
Claire looked at her.
"For putting me in a coffin."
No one argued.
Ethan stared at the transfer.
"Why not just take the money and leave?"
Mara answered.
"Because the money was probably a down payment."
"On what?"
Nora opened the trust structure.
"Control of Parker Biomedical."
The company was preparing for a major acquisition.
If completed, the Parker family's voting shares would become vastly more valuable.
Claire controlled enough shares through the trust to block the deal.
She had planned to do exactly that because she believed the buyer intended to break the company apart.
Richard had argued with her about it for months.
Ethan remembered hearing them through his bedroom wall.
Richard called Claire sentimental.
Claire told him he did not understand what her grandfather built.
At the time, Ethan thought it was only another adult argument about work.
Now every argument looked different.
Nora pointed to the acquisition calendar.
"The shareholder vote is in nine days."
Claire stared at the date.
"If I am legally dead, who votes my shares?"
Nora looked at the trust document.
"The interim administrator."
"Victor Sloane."
"Yes."
Mara leaned back.
"There it is."
The funeral was not only about making Claire disappear.
It was about a deadline.
Nine days.
If Victor controlled Claire's shares for even a week, he could approve a transaction worth hundreds of millions.
After that, whether Claire's death was questioned might no longer matter to the people who profited.
Lena's phone rang.
She answered without greeting.
Her face changed as she listened.
"When?"
A pause.
"Do not touch anything."
She ended the call.
Claire stood.
"Rebecca?"
Lena nodded.
"They found her condominium."
"Is she there?"
"No."
"Where is she?"
Lena looked at Ethan before answering.
"There is blood in the kitchen."
Claire went white.
"How much?"
"Enough to be concerned."
Ethan felt guilty immediately.
Only minutes earlier, he had wondered whether Rebecca had betrayed them.
Now she might be hurt because she had tried to help.
Then Lena added something worse.
"They found a printed funeral program on her table."
Claire frowned.
"Why is that strange?"
"Because it was printed Wednesday."
The funeral had not been publicly announced until Friday.
Mara stood.
"Rebecca knew about the funeral before Claire was supposedly dead."
Ethan shook his head.
"Maybe Richard told her."
Claire looked at the bloodstained photograph Lena's investigator had sent.
Beside the funeral program was a handwritten note.
Lena enlarged it.
The note contained four words.
CLAIRE CANNOT KNOW YET.
The handwriting belonged to Rebecca.
Claire sank into a chair.
"She knew."
A car engine revved outside.
Brennan moved toward the window.
A black SUV turned into the clinic lot.
Then another.
Lena reached for her weapon.
"Back exit."
They gathered the evidence.
Ethan grabbed his grandmother's letter.
Mara took the hidden drive.
Claire carried nothing except Ethan's hand.
The first SUV stopped across the front entrance.
Two men stepped out.
Neither wore a uniform.
The second SUV blocked the street.
Brennan looked through the blinds.
"Not police."
"Richard?" Claire asked.
"Maybe."
Lena led them through the old treatment rooms toward the back.
A crash sounded in the waiting room.
Glass shattered.
Ethan heard footsteps.
They reached the rear door.
Lena opened it.
A third vehicle was waiting in the alley.
The driver's window lowered.
Rebecca Lane sat behind the wheel.
There was dried blood on her blouse.
Claire scrolled farther through Rebecca's old messages and found one from six months earlier.
Rebecca had asked whether Richard still attended Victor Sloane's monthly dinners.
Claire had answered with a joke.
At the time, the question had seemed casual.
Now it looked like surveillance.
Ethan watched his mother's face.
"You really think Aunt Rebecca could be part of it?"
Claire took too long to answer.
"I think I do not know who had which secret anymore."
That answer scared Ethan more than yes would have.
Rebecca had always represented normal life.
She brought birthday gifts.
She complained about Claire's coffee.
She knew where the spare house key was hidden.
If even ordinary affection could hide another purpose, Ethan did not know where safety began.
May you like
She looked directly at Claire.
"Get in if you want to know why your mother was really killed."
