Chapter 18 - The Call
The hospital locked down again.
Claire was moved to a different floor under an alias. Lily and Evan stayed with her. Richard refused to leave.
Police searched the city.
Hours passed.
At 3:17 a.m., Claire’s phone rang from an unknown number.
Officer Collins answered.
No one spoke.
Then Grant’s voice came through.
“Put Claire on.”
Collins signaled Detective Bell, who began tracing the call.
Claire took the phone.
“What do you want?”
“You destroyed everything.”
“You did that.”
“I built a life for us.”
“You built a trap.”
Grant breathed into the line. “You think your father is innocent?”
Claire looked at Richard.
“What does that mean?”
“Ask him why your mother’s driver changed routes the night she died.”
Richard went still.
Claire saw it.
“Dad?”
Grant laughed softly. “There it is.”
“Where are you?” Claire asked.
“Closer than you think.”
The call ended.
Bell looked at the trace. “He bounced the signal. We have a general area, nothing precise.”
Claire turned to Richard. “What did he mean?”
Richard looked older than he had the day before.
“The night Marianne died, she called me from the gala. She said someone was following her.”
Claire’s stomach dropped.
“I told her driver to avoid the highway and take Route 17.”
“So you changed the route.”
“Yes.”
“Did Grant know?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire stared at him.
Richard’s voice broke. “I have lived with that decision every day for seven years.”
Bell interrupted. “We may have Grant.”
Everyone turned.
“A patrol unit found the wrecked transport driver’s phone in an alley. There’s a recent outgoing call to a storage facility near the river.”
Richard frowned. “Warehouse 6?”
“No.”
Bell looked at Claire.
“Warehouse 7.”
Claire remembered the evidence list.
There had never been a Warehouse 7.
Bell checked the address.
Then his face tightened.
The building was owned by Hart Holdings.
May you like
Claire’s family company.
SOFT PINK
