Chapter 10 - The Call
Ethan called the police.
Margaret objected.
For once, nobody listened.
Officers arrived within fifteen minutes.
They photographed the card, the Blue Room, the broken dust pattern, and the recorder.
Claire gave them the letter from her mother.
Daniel gave them copies of the financial records.
Margaret gave them almost nothing.
At 11:47 p.m., an officer asked whether Claire had somewhere else to stay.
Before she could answer, her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She almost ignored it.
Then she remembered the threat.
She answered.
“Hello?”
A man breathed on the other end.
No words.
Then a sound.
A woman crying.
Claire stood.
“Who is this?”
The crying became clearer.
Lauren went pale.
“That’s Aunt Susan.”
Peter’s wife.
Claire put the phone on speaker.
A man’s voice said, “Tell Daniel to return what he took.”
Daniel’s face hardened.
“What did you take?” Ethan demanded.
Daniel did not answer.
The voice continued.
“Midnight tomorrow. No police.”
Then the call ended.
Lauren whispered, “Where is Susan?”
Richard grabbed his phone.
“She went home early. She wasn’t feeling well.”
Police immediately sent units to Peter and Susan’s house.
Daniel walked to the window.
Ethan followed him.
“What did you take?”
Daniel stared outside.
“Insurance.”
“What kind?”
“The original pages of Eleanor’s will.”
Claire’s heartbeat jumped.
“You have them?”
“Not here.”
“Where?”
Daniel looked at her.
“With a lawyer.”
Margaret gave a short laugh.
“Of course.”
Daniel turned.
“You destroyed the copy Eleanor kept in this house.”
“I destroyed a draft.”
“You destroyed anything that threatened your control.”
A police officer interrupted.
“Mr. Hale, if you have original estate documents connected to this threat, we need them.”
Daniel nodded.
“I’ll provide the attorney’s information.”
Claire’s phone buzzed.
A text.
Unknown number.
A photograph loaded slowly.
Susan sat in a chair.
Alive.
Terrified.
Behind her was a concrete wall and a red metal cabinet.
Below the image were six words.
ASK CLAIRE ABOUT HER MOTHER’S LAST DRIVE.
Claire stared at the message.
Ethan looked over her shoulder.
“What does that mean?”
Claire’s mind went back nine years.
Rain.
A highway.
A police officer at her apartment door.
Her mother’s car found against a guardrail.
No other vehicle.
Accident caused by wet pavement.
Case closed.
Except Claire suddenly remembered something she had buried.
The week before her death, Anna had called and asked Claire to keep a blue flash drive if she ever mailed one.
Claire thought it was stress.
No drive ever came.
Or so she believed.
Then she remembered the old Christmas box in her apartment storage unit.
May you like
The one her mother mailed days before the crash.
Still unopened.
