Chapter 7 - The Back Exit

The doorknob turned once.

Twice.

Then came a hard knock.

"Police."

Claire looked at Maya.

Maya did not move. "Which police?"

A man's voice answered from the other side. "Detective Mercer. Open the door."

Rosa gripped Claire's wrist. "Back."

The tailor shop had a narrow hallway leading to an alley. Maya grabbed the laptop and memory card while Rosa guided Claire past hanging garment bags and dusty mirrors.

Mercer pounded again.

"Mrs. Bennett, I know you're in there. Your husband reported you missing and medically endangered."

Claire almost laughed. "Medically endangered by him."

Maya whispered, "Don't answer."

They reached the rear door.

Locked.

Rosa produced a small key from her shoe.

The front door splintered.

"Move," Maya said.

They slipped into the alley just as heavy footsteps entered the shop.

Claire's belly tightened painfully.

She stopped.

"Not now."

"What?" Maya asked.

"A contraction."

Rosa looked terrified. "How close?"

"It's probably stress."

Another contraction seized her before she finished the sentence.

They hurried to Maya's car. Mercer burst through the back door as Maya started the engine.

He raised one hand.

"Claire! Stop!"

Maya reversed so fast the tires screamed.

Mercer jumped aside.

They drove three blocks before Claire saw the unmarked sedan behind them.

"He's following us."

Maya made two quick turns, then entered a parking garage attached to a crowded shopping center. She drove down one level, then up two, circling until the sedan disappeared.

Rosa said, "He will call Daniel."

"Let him," Maya replied. "I'm calling someone else."

She contacted a federal prosecutor she knew from a previous fraud case, then sent an encrypted copy of Charles's video to three separate locations.

Claire breathed through another contraction.

Maya glanced at her. "We need a hospital."

"Not Briar Glen."

"Agreed."

They headed toward University Medical Center across town.

Halfway there, Claire's phone rang.

Daniel.

She declined it.

He called again.

And again.

Then a text arrived.

COME HOME. WE CAN FIX THIS.

Claire typed: Where is Mercer?

Daniel responded immediately.

WHO?

She stared at the lie.

Then another message arrived, this one from an unknown number.

A photograph.

Miguel, the gardener, bound to a chair in the Bennett greenhouse.

Under it were five words:

BRING ROSA AND THE VIDEO.

Claire looked at Rosa.

Rosa whispered, "They know."

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