Chapter 6 - Vivian Runs
Vivian had not slipped past the police.
She had used a service elevator no one remembered existed.
The old house had been renovated three times, and the elevator opened inside a pantry near the garage. By the time an officer found the door ajar, Vivian's black Mercedes was already gone.
Claire stood in the driveway wrapped in a borrowed coat over her backless black dress while red and blue lights flashed across the stone facade.
"She left her phone," Nolan said.
"Of course she did."
"Do you know where she would go?"
Claire thought of the woman who planned every dinner seating chart down to the inch.
Vivian never improvised.
If she ran, she had a destination prepared.
"The country club," Claire said.
Nolan frowned. "At this hour?"
"Not the main building. She has a private locker room in the old golf annex. She keeps records there because she thinks the staff is invisible."
Martin Hale appeared behind them.
"Claire, don't go."
She looked at him.
"You knew she was dangerous and let me marry into this family."
He flinched.
"Your father made me promise not to interfere unless the failsafe triggered."
"It triggered when she hit me with a golf club. I'd say we're past polite timing."
Nolan stepped between them. "Mrs. Cole, you are not coming with us."
"Then you'll miss something."
"What?"
"Vivian's locker isn't in Vivian's name."
"Whose name?"
Claire remembered seeing a dues statement years earlier.
"Evelyn March."
Martin went pale.
Nolan caught it.
"Who is Evelyn March?"
Martin hesitated.
Claire said, "I don't know."
Martin did.
He rubbed a hand over his face.
"She was Claire's father's executive assistant. Twenty-two years."
"Was?"
"She disappeared four years ago. Two weeks after Samuel died."
Claire stared at him.
"You told me she moved to Arizona."
"That's what I was told."
"By whom?"
Martin's eyes shifted toward the police car carrying Ethan.
Claire's anger sharpened.
"By Ethan?"
"By Vivian."
Nolan immediately radioed officers to the country club.
Claire opened her father's letter under the driveway lights and skimmed the next paragraph.
There was a name.
Evelyn March.
And beneath it, a warning.
If Evelyn disappears, assume my death was not natural.
Claire stopped.
Her father had died of a heart attack in his own office.
At least that was what the death certificate said.
She handed the letter to Nolan.
Nolan read the line twice.
Then her radio crackled.
"Unit Twelve to Nolan. We located the golf annex locker. Door's open. There's blood on the floor."
Claire's knees nearly gave way.
May you like
The next transmission was worse.
"And we've got a woman inside. Alive. Says her name is Evelyn March."
