Chapter 8 - The Bride Calls
Caleb called Sloane immediately.
She answered on the first ring.
“Caleb, thank God.”
“Did you send me that photo?”
“What photo?”
“Don’t do this.”
“I swear to you, I didn’t.”
“Your voice is on the recording.”
Silence.
Then a small inhale.
“You found B-17.”
There was no point pretending anymore.
Caleb closed his eyes.
“Where is my mother?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Exactly?”
“My father took over after she escaped.”
“So you knew she was being held.”
“I knew she was at Cedar Ridge.”
“Held.”
“Caleb, she was trying to destroy everything.”
“What, exactly, was she destroying? The fraud?”
Sloane’s voice cracked. “My father told me the transfers were temporary financing.”
“And the trust?”
Another silence.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I knew about the trust.”
Caleb felt the last clean piece of their relationship break.
“You knew I had to marry for you to get control.”
“I was already going to marry you.”
“For love?”
“Yes.”
“Then why hide the amendment?”
She began crying.
It might have moved him two hours earlier.
Now it sounded like strategy.
“Your father has my mother,” Caleb said. “Get her back.”
“I can’t control him.”
“You controlled me just fine.”
He ended the call.
Ross’s information led them to an industrial building in Yonkers with no company name on the exterior. Caleb called the police on the way, but the dispatcher told him officers would meet them rather than authorize a private entry.
He ignored that part.
The front office was empty.
Emma found a wall directory.
“Transport records are upstairs.”
They climbed.
On the second floor, Rosa pointed toward a computer still logged in.
A dispatch map displayed five vehicles.
One was traveling north on the Taconic State Parkway.
Vehicle 41.
Destination: WILLOW CREST.
Rosa whispered, “I know that name.”
Caleb looked at her.
“It’s not a clinic,” she said. “It was your grandmother’s country house.”
The screen refreshed.
Vehicle 41 stopped moving.
A red alert appeared.
May you like
SIGNAL LOST.
Then the office lights went out.
