Chapter 8 - Chloe’s Version of Love
Sarah was bruised, dehydrated, and furious.
At the hospital she refused pain medication until she finished telling the detectives what happened.
Arthur had intercepted her outside a grocery store after learning she had contacted Elena. He forced her into his car and drove to the motel. He did not beat her. That would have required admitting violence.
Instead, he locked the door, removed her phone, and kept repeating that the family needed “one last correction.”
“He still talks like an accountant,” Sarah said. “Even when he kidnaps someone.”
I sat beside her bed and held her hand.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For dragging you back into this.”
Sarah’s fingers closed around mine. “You were never the thing that dragged me into it.”
The sentence almost broke me.
She told us Chloe had Elena’s missing phone because Neil Foster recovered it after the fall. The screen shattered, but the internal memory survived. Dominic wanted it destroyed. Chloe refused.
“Why?” I asked.
“Insurance,” Sarah said. “Against Dominic. Against Arthur. Against everyone.”
That sounded exactly like Chloe.
She had grown up being protected from consequences. Eventually, people like that stopped trusting protection and started collecting leverage.
Marcus located her by 5 p.m.
She was staying in a luxury suite at the Langford Hotel under a false name.
Police wanted to move immediately.
Maya stopped them.
“If Chloe has the phone and believes she’s cornered, she may destroy it. We need her talking.”
So I called my sister.
She answered on the first ring.
“Finally,” she said.
“You wanted money.”
“I still do.”
“You also wanted my signature.”
Silence.
Then a soft laugh.
“Dad always said you were slow because you spent too much time being angry.”
My prosthetic clicked as I crossed the hospital corridor.
“Meet me,” I said.
“Bring the million.”
“It’s my million.”
Another silence.
That one lasted longer.
“So Sarah told you.”
“She told me enough.”
Chloe’s voice hardened. “Sarah has always hated Mom.”
“No. Sarah hated what they did.”
“You love saying that, don’t you? What they did to poor Lena. What they stole from poor Lena. How they chose poor little Chloe instead.”
I leaned against the wall.
“Did they choose you?” I asked.
She laughed again, but the sound was brittle.
“You think being the favorite is freedom?”
For the first time, something genuine moved beneath her voice.
“Every recital had to be perfect. Every grade. Every photo. Every boyfriend. Mom would say, ‘We gave up everything because your sister failed us. Don’t make us regret choosing you.’”
I closed my eyes.
Pain did not excuse cruelty.
But cruelty often had genealogy.
“Then why Elena?” I asked.
“Because Dominic said the altered supports were temporary. No one was going to get hurt.”
“Elena did.”
“I didn’t push her.”
“You hired the man who cornered her.”
“I hired him to get the notebook.”
“And told him accidents happen.”
Her breathing stopped.
She knew we had a recording.
“Who gave you that?”
“Meet me.”
Chloe said nothing.
Then: “Midnight. Hudson North. Alone.”
“No.”
“If you want Elena’s phone, you come alone.”
The line went dead.
The police objected, naturally.
We compromised in the way law enforcement describes plans that are neither safe nor sane.
I would enter alone wearing a wire. Tactical officers would remain one level below. Daniel would monitor the building cameras, but we assumed Brantham could disable them.
At 11:58 p.m., I entered Hudson North through the east gate.
The unfinished tower groaned in the wind.
Rain tapped against exposed steel.
My footsteps echoed across concrete.
Click.
Step.
Click.
Step.
At Stairwell 4, Chloe waited beneath a work light.
She wore a camel coat and held Elena’s broken phone in one hand.
“You always did know how to make an entrance,” she said.
“Give me the phone.”
“Bring me the money.”
“I didn’t.”
Her face changed.
Then another voice came from the darkness behind me.
“You never learned to follow instructions.”
May you like
My father stepped into the light.
In his hand was a pistol.
