Chapter 8 - The Woman Who Knew He Could Walk
Rebecca Hale was alive.
That fact should have brought Marcus relief.
Instead, it terrified him.
“Let me talk to her,” he said.
The caller had already disconnected.
Grant immediately froze the transfer.
Then he called police.
Marcus stopped him.
“If Richard has your mother—”
“He already knows we have the ledgers.”
“He may panic.”
“He should.”
Grant contacted the federal agent handling the foundation records.
Within an hour, Eleanor’s car was found abandoned near Providence Harbor.
No sign of Eleanor.
Grant blamed himself.
Claire did not let him.
“This started before your accident.”
“I accelerated it.”
“So did I by finding the envelope.”
“That isn’t the same.”
“No. But guilt still doesn’t locate your mother.”
Grant looked at her.
She had every reason to hate him.
Yet she was still there.
Not because he deserved it.
Because that was who Claire was.
Marcus traced Rebecca’s call to a prepaid phone.
Then another call came.
This time directly to him.
He answered.
“Rebecca?”
Silence.
Then sobbing.
“Marcus.”
His knees nearly gave out.
“Where are you?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Where are you?”
“I couldn’t come home.”
“Seven years.”
“I know.”
“I buried you.”
“I know.”
Marcus turned away, crying.
Grant had never seen him cry.
Rebecca explained quickly.
Richard had found her months earlier.
He forced her to help retrieve the original ledger by threatening Claire and Noah.
“Where is Eleanor?”
“Alive.”
“Where?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Rebecca.”
“He’ll kill her.”
Grant took the phone.
“Rebecca, listen to me. Richard is finished. We copied the ledger.”
A pause.
“What?”
“It’s already with federal investigators.”
Rebecca began laughing.
Not happily.
With exhausted disbelief.
“All these years.”
“Yes.”
“All these years, and I only had to survive until someone stopped being afraid.”
Grant looked at Claire.
The sentence belonged to all of them.
“Help us find my mother.”
Rebecca gave them an address.
An abandoned rehabilitation center once funded by the Whitmore Foundation.
Police surrounded it.
Grant insisted on going.
Claire stayed with Noah.
Marcus went with Grant.
Inside, they found Eleanor tied to a chair.
Alive.
Richard was gone.
Rebecca was gone too.
On the wall, written in marker, were three words.
SHE CHOSE HIM.
Grant stared.
“Who?”
Marcus searched the room.
Then found a phone.
One video.
Rebecca appeared on screen.
“If you found Eleanor, Richard has moved me. Don’t follow unless you understand what he wants.”
She looked directly into the camera.
“He doesn’t want money anymore.”
Grant leaned closer.
“He wants Grant.”
The video ended.
Marcus looked at him.
“Why?”
Grant knew.
“Because I can testify to the transfers, authenticate the foundation records, and connect Richard to the companies.”
“You’re not meeting him.”
“He has Rebecca.”
“You’re not.”
Grant’s phone rang.
Richard.
Grant answered.
“You’ve made this unnecessarily difficult,” Richard said.
“You kidnapped my mother.”
“Your family stole first.”
“My father did.”
“And your mother covered it.”
“That doesn’t justify any of this.”
Richard laughed.
“Justification is something rich people purchase after the fact.”
“What do you want?”
“A confession.”
“To what?”
“That you fabricated evidence against me to distract from your paralysis fraud.”
Grant understood.
Richard wanted to poison the case publicly.
“Where?”
Richard gave an address.
Marcus shook his head violently.
Grant ended the call.
“You’re not going.”
“I am.”
Claire arrived at the hospital where Eleanor had been taken.
When she heard the plan, she said the same thing.
“No.”
“Rebecca saved you.”
“That doesn’t mean you walk into a trap.”
“I’m not letting Marcus lose his sister twice.”
Claire stared at him.
“You think sacrifice means destroying yourself for everyone else.”
Grant almost smiled.
“Wonder where I learned that.”
She did not smile.
“From me?”
“Yes.”
“Then you learned it wrong.”
She stepped closer.
“Sacrifice without truth is just another kind of lie.”
Grant absorbed that.
They coordinated with federal agents.
Grant would go.
But not alone.
The meeting point was an unfinished hotel on the coast.
One of Grant’s failed developments from years earlier.
The irony was deliberate.
Grant entered wearing a wire.
Richard stood in the empty ballroom.
Rebecca sat tied to a chair.
Older.
Thinner.
But alive.
Grant looked at her.
“You knew I could walk.”
Rebecca smiled weakly.
“Everyone knows now.”
“No. Before.”
Her expression changed.
“How?”
“The caller told me to stop investigating. She knew too much.”
Richard laughed.
“She saw you stand through the mansion window the night your lights went out.”
Grant remembered.
Someone had been watching.
Richard held up a document.
“Sign.”
Grant read it.
A confession claiming he fabricated financial evidence.
“No.”
Richard pulled a gun.
Rebecca closed her eyes.
Grant’s wire transmitted everything.
But the agents were waiting for a clear signal.
Richard pointed the gun at Rebecca.
“Sign.”
Grant took the pen.
Then Rebecca screamed, “Don’t!”
Richard turned toward her.
Grant lunged.
The gun fired.
Glass exploded.
Federal agents stormed the room.
Richard fell beneath three officers.
Grant hit the floor.
Marcus rushed to Rebecca.
For several seconds, nobody knew who had been shot.
Then Grant looked down.
No blood.
Rebecca was unharmed.
Richard had fired into the window.
Grant exhaled.
It was over.
Or he thought it was.
As officers dragged Richard away, he looked at Grant and smiled.
“You still don’t know who Vanessa works for.”
Grant’s relief disappeared.
Richard leaned closer.
“She was never working for me.”
Then he said one final name.
May you like
And Grant stopped breathing.
“Eleanor.”
