Chapter 10 - The Daughter Who Ran
Nathan's wound was a graze.
The bullet had torn through the outside of his upper arm without striking bone.
He complained more about the emergency room coffee than the injury, which was how I knew he was frightened.
Police recovered three rounds from the house and one partial casing from a storm drain.
No clean prints.
No useful plate from the SUV.
And no Chloe.
Until 3:06 the next morning.
Daniel woke me in the secure hotel suite by knocking four times.
Tap.
Tap.
Pause.
Tap.
I opened the door furious.
"Do not ever knock like that again."
He blinked. "Like what?"
Then he understood.
"Sorry."
"What happened?"
"Chloe is downstairs."
I stared at him.
"Alive?"
"Very. And asking for you."
She sat in a private conference room wearing jeans, a borrowed sweatshirt, and no makeup.
There was dried blood under one nostril.
A bruise darkened her wrist.
For the first time, she looked her age.
Maybe younger.
"Did your father shoot at my lawyer?" I asked.
She shook her head quickly.
"I don't know."
"That's not a useful beginning."
"I didn't know he would go that far."
"Better. Keep going."
Chloe stared at the tabletop.
"My father introduced me to Ethan."
I felt my jaw lock.
"You make it sound like a business meeting."
"It was. At first."
Daniel closed the door and stayed beside it.
Chloe rubbed her bruised wrist.
"Dad wanted access. Ethan wanted importance. I was supposed to make Ethan feel chosen."
"You slept with my husband because your father asked you to?"
Her eyes came up.
"No. I slept with Ethan because I was angry and stupid and because he made it easy to believe I was hurting my father by enjoying the assignment."
That answer was ugly enough to sound true.
"And the pregnancy?"
Her hand covered her stomach.
"Real. Ethan's."
I looked away for a second.
Not because I cared about Ethan's future child.
Because seven years of Margaret's word barren suddenly crowded the room.
Chloe's voice softened.
"I didn't know about you. Not really. Ethan said you were basically separated. That you stayed married for appearances."
"And when you learned that was a lie?"
She swallowed.
"I stayed."
There it was.
No excuse.
"Why are you here?"
She reached into the front pocket of the sweatshirt and placed a tiny digital recorder on the table.
"Because my father scares me more than you hate me."
Daniel moved closer.
"Where did you get that?"
"His study in Austin. He records meetings. Old habit. He thinks memory is a form of weakness."
"What's on it?"
"Enough."
I did not touch it.
"Why were you in the SUV after the shooting?"
Chloe shut her eyes.
"I was trying to get away from the house. One of Dad's men picked me up. I didn't know they were going to fire at anyone. When the shooting started, I tried to get out. He locked the doors."
"How did you escape?"
"Gas station outside Katy. I threw up in the backseat. He stopped because he didn't want me ruining the car."
A laugh almost escaped me.
Not because it was funny.
Because Gabriel's control operation had apparently been defeated by morning sickness.
Daniel took the recorder with gloves and connected it to an isolated laptop.
The first file was static and muffled voices.
Then Gabriel spoke clearly.
"The suspension has to happen before flood protocol."
A male voice answered.
Martin.
I stiffened.
"If the president is under formal review, emergency transport authority can shift to operations," Martin said.
Gabriel: "And if she refuses?"
Martin: "She won't. Claire follows written procedure when she's angry. That's the one thing you can count on."
My stomach dropped.
Daniel looked at me.
Chloe whispered, "Keep listening."
A chair scraped.
Then Margaret's voice.
"You only get one clean shock with Claire. The locks will do it. Ethan gives her the envelope. Chloe stands where she can see the pregnancy. Claire will freeze the accounts before midnight."
I felt the room tilt.
The eviction.
The cruelty.
The $2,500.
Not spontaneous.
Choreographed.
Gabriel chuckled.
"Twenty-five hundred?"
Margaret answered, "Specific numbers humiliate people more than round ones."
My hands began to shake.
Chloe stared at them.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't."
The recording continued.
Martin's voice again.
"Once the freeze hits, the fallback authorizations activate. But nobody touches Claire. This remains corporate."
Gabriel said, "Corporate until it isn't."
A long silence.
Then another voice.
Unknown.
"Flood warning gives us six hours. If Sterling is still resisting, make the president disappear before the water goes down."
Daniel paused the recording.
Nobody spoke.
Outside the conference room, thunder rolled across Houston.
My phone lit with a weather alert.
FLASH FLOOD WATCH - HARRIS COUNTY - EFFECTIVE 6:00 P.M.
Chloe looked at the screen.
May you like
Her face went white.
"That's tonight," she whispered.
