Chapter 9 - THE EIGHTH PHOTOGRAPH
Claire crossed the room before Rebecca finished speaking.
"What do you mean Ethan's photograph?"
Rebecca stepped back.
"It was in Victor's folder."
"Why?"
"I do not know."
Claire's voice rose.
"Then tell me exactly what you saw."
Ethan had never heard his mother sound like that.
Not angry.
Not frightened.
Something beyond both.
Rebecca closed her eyes and reconstructed the screen from memory.
The Continuity folder contained eight subfolders.
Each was named with initials rather than full names.
Inside the first six were photographs, estate summaries, death notices, and payment records.
The seventh contained Claire's portrait from the Parker Biomedical website.
Under it were copies of her trust documents and a draft obituary.
The eighth contained Ethan's school photograph.
Nothing else.
No obituary.
No financial paperwork.
Just a photograph.
"Maybe it was leverage," Brennan said.
Claire turned on him.
"Do not make guesses about my son's photograph being in a folder connected to dead people."
Brennan nodded.
"Fair."
Ethan tried to stay calm.
"Was there a date?"
Rebecca looked at him.
"I think so."
"What date?"
She thought.
"October seventeenth."
Ethan felt his stomach drop.
"That is my birthday."
Claire grabbed the back of a chair.
Nora looked at the trust documents.
"How old will you be?"
"Thirteen."
Nora and Claire looked at each other.
Ethan hated that look.
It meant adults had found something they did not want to explain.
"What happens when I turn thirteen?"
Claire answered carefully.
"Your great-grandfather's trust created a custodial share for you."
"Money?"
"Voting shares."
Nora opened a document.
"At thirteen, Ethan's shares are not transferred to him directly."
"But his legal guardian receives proxy authority over them until he is eighteen."
Ethan understood.
"If Mom is dead, Richard is my guardian."
No one spoke.
"So he gets my votes too."
Nora nodded.
The acquisition vote was nine days away.
Ethan's thirteenth birthday was eleven days away.
The dates were close enough to matter if Victor delayed the vote or needed a second vote after the transaction.
Claire looked sick.
"Richard was not planning to stop with me."
Brennan spoke quietly.
"He may have planned to keep Ethan, not hurt him."
Claire stared at him.
"Keep him how?"
"As guardian."
"After telling me my son was dead and telling my son I was dead?"
Brennan did not answer.
Ethan remembered Thursday night at the hotel.
The unknown babysitter had been kind but strangely watchful.
She kept his phone in her purse because Richard said Ethan needed rest.
Friday morning, Richard arrived with red eyes and told him Claire had died.
Then he made Ethan take a small white pill.
Richard said it was for anxiety.
Ethan had pretended to swallow it.
He hid it beneath his tongue and later spit it into the bathroom sink.
At the time he felt guilty for disobeying.
Now he told the others.
Claire went rigid.
"He gave you a pill?"
"I did not take it."
"What did it look like?"
Ethan described it.
Lena wrote down the details.
"We need the hotel records and the babysitter's identity."
Rebecca looked up sharply.
"I know who she was."
Everyone turned.
"Her name is Dana Mercer."
"How do you know?"
"She works for Voss."
Claire stared at her.
Rebecca explained that Dana was listed as a clinical coordinator at Voss's private clinic.
She had seen the name in Victor's shared files beside transportation invoices.
Mara searched the clinic website.
Dana's photograph appeared.
Ethan recognized her instantly.
"That is her."
Lena called a state team and gave them Dana's address.
Then the lights in the boathouse flickered.
Brennan looked toward the electrical panel.
"Storm?"
Rebecca shook her head.
"There is no storm."
The lights went out.
Ethan's heart began pounding.
Darkness had become a warning.
The chapel lights.
The vault ventilation.
Now the boathouse.
Brennan switched on a flashlight.
Lena moved toward the rear door.
A motor started outside.
Not a car.
A boat.
Rebecca whispered.
"There should not be anyone on the lake this early."
Mara looked through a gap in the curtains.
A small fishing boat drifted toward the dock without navigation lights.
Two figures were inside.
Brennan killed the flashlight.
"Everyone down."
They crouched behind furniture.
The boat bumped softly against the dock.
Footsteps moved across the wooden boards.
Ethan heard the rear handle turn.
Locked.
Then a voice came through the door.
"Rebecca?"
She froze.
Claire looked at her.
"Who is it?"
Rebecca whispered.
"My brother."
She moved toward the door.
Brennan stopped her.
"You said your family did not know you were here."
"They do not."
The voice came again.
"Rebecca, open the door."
Ethan watched her face.
She looked terrified.
"My brother lives in Seattle."
The man outside knocked three times.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Ethan's skin went cold.
Whoever was outside knew their signal.
Claire pulled him closer.
"How does he know that?"
Nobody answered.
The man knocked again.
"Ethan, your mom wants you to open the door."
Claire covered Ethan's mouth before he could react.
The sentence made no sense because Claire was beside him.
That was the point.
The person outside was testing whether Ethan was inside.
Brennan motioned everyone toward a storage room at the back.
Lena whispered that the boathouse had a loft exit over the water.
They moved silently.
The front window shattered.
A metal object rolled across the floor.
Smoke began pouring from it.
Mara pulled her shirt over her nose.
"Move."
Ethan climbed the ladder to the loft.
Claire followed.
Rebecca was behind her.
Brennan and Lena stayed below long enough to block the stair.
Nora pushed Box 314 through the loft hatch.
Outside, a narrow roof led toward the water.
The drop was fifteen feet.
Rebecca pointed to a ladder on the side.
"Down there."
They descended toward a small utility boat tied behind the building.
Claire climbed in first.
Ethan followed.
Mara untied the rope.
Nora started the motor.
Rebecca jumped aboard last.
Brennan and Lena appeared at the loft window.
"Go!" Brennan shouted.
"What about you?" Claire yelled.
"Go!"
Nora pushed the throttle.
The boat pulled away.
Ethan looked back.
Two men came onto the dock.
One raised a gun.
Claire forced Ethan down before he could see more.
A loud crack echoed across the lake.
The boat's rear window shattered.
Mara screamed for Nora to keep moving.
They disappeared around a bend.
Five minutes later, Claire tried calling Brennan.
No answer.
Lena did not answer either.
Then Ethan's phone vibrated.
A message from Brennan appeared.
SAFE. DO NOT COME BACK.
Claire exhaled.
Another message arrived immediately.
Lena asked Ethan to describe the hotel room from Thursday night in exact detail.
He remembered beige curtains, a painting of sailboats, two water bottles, and a television that Richard had told him not to turn on.
He also remembered a camera mounted above the hallway elevator.
"Good," Lena said.
"Why good?"
"Because hotels keep more records than people realize."
Within an hour, investigators preserved the sign-out log, elevator video, and parking footage before anyone connected to Collins could request deletion.
The footage showed Dana Mercer entering Ethan's room with a medical bag.
It also showed Richard leaving alone for forty-seven minutes.
Claire stared at that gap.
Forty-seven minutes was long enough to drive home.
Long enough to stand beside an unconscious Claire.
Long enough to decide not to stop what came next.
May you like
Same number.
THIS IS NOT BRENNAN.
