Chapter 10 - The House
Police obtained a warrant for Grant and Claire’s home before sunset.
Claire wanted to go with them.
The doctor refused.
“You are staying in this bed,” she said. “That is not a suggestion.”
So Richard went instead.
He wore a body camera supplied by police because Detective Bell wanted a clear record of anything he found that belonged to Claire personally.
The house looked normal from the outside.
Inside, it felt staged.
Family photos were missing from the hallway. Claire’s laptop was gone. Two file drawers in the home office had been emptied.
Richard opened Grant’s desk.
Nothing.
Then he noticed a scratch beneath the bottom drawer.
“Bell,” he called.
The detective crouched beside him. A false panel had been cut into the back of the cabinet.
Inside was a prepaid phone.
Bell powered it on in airplane mode.
There were only three saved contacts.
V.
T.
And DAD.
Richard frowned. “Grant’s father has been dead twelve years.”
Bell opened the message thread marked DAD.
The messages were not from a father.
They were instructions.
Move the funds before quarter close.
Keep Claire isolated.
Use the old medical route if she resists.
Richard felt his stomach turn.
“Old medical route?”
Bell scrolled farther.
One message was dated six years earlier.
Same physician. Same diagnosis language. Same strategy.
But the patient name was different.
Marianne Hart.
Claire’s mother.
Richard sat down hard in the desk chair.
Bell’s face tightened.
The final message in that old thread read:
If Marianne talks, Plan B happens on Route 17.
Richard’s hands began to shake.
Route 17 was where his wife had died.
Bell turned off the phone.
“We need to find whoever ‘DAD’ is.”
Richard looked toward the doorway.
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
The house was supposed to be empty.
Bell drew his weapon.
“Police! Show yourself!”
May you like
Someone ran across the second floor.
SOFT PINK
