Chapter 9
The flash drive contained one video.
No password.
No explanation.
Just a file dated seven years earlier.
Three weeks before Claire died.
Detective Brooks insisted on watching it first.
Then he let me see it.
Claire appeared on the screen.
My Claire.
Alive.
Sitting in our old kitchen.
Her blonde hair tied back.
No makeup.
Nervous.
She kept looking toward the window.
“Michael,” she said.
My chest collapsed.
I hadn’t heard her voice in years.
“If you’re watching this, something happened before I could explain.”
I covered my mouth.
Claire continued.
“I know that sounds dramatic.”
A sad smile.
“You always tell me I watch too many crime shows.”
I almost laughed.
Instead, tears ran down my face.
“But I found something.”
She held up a folder.
“Evan has been hiding financial problems.”
I glanced through the observation glass toward the room where Evan was being questioned.
Claire continued.
“But this isn’t only about Evan.”
Her expression changed.
“A woman approached me last month.”
My pulse hammered.
“She called herself Vanessa Mercer.”
There it was.
Vanessa’s maiden name.
Claire looked directly into the camera.
“She said she worked for a consulting firm doing research on biomedical startups.”
I turned toward Brooks.
He wrote something down.
“She knew too much about you,” Claire said.
“She knew your travel schedule. Your investors. She knew we were trying to have a baby.”
My skin crawled.
“She asked me whether our marriage was stable.”
Claire shook her head.
“It was strange.”
Then she leaned closer.
“I looked into her.”
The video flickered.
“She doesn’t work for a normal consulting firm.”
Claire held up a business card.
The image was blurry, but Brooks paused and enhanced it.
Sentinel Strategic.
The same company connected to the hidden cameras.
Claire continued.
“I think someone hired them to investigate Carter Biomedical.”
My stomach twisted.
Seven years.
This had started seven years ago.
“She also knows Evan.”
I turned sharply toward the observation window.
Onscreen, Claire whispered, “I saw them together.”
My jaw tightened.
“Evan said he doesn’t know her,” I told Brooks.
Brooks’ face hardened.
Claire continued.
“I confronted him. He told me I was paranoid.”
Then she looked frightened.
“Yesterday, someone went through my office.”
She held up a broken desk lock.
“I haven’t told you because you’re trying to close the Denver funding round and I didn’t want you distracted.”
I shut my eyes.
Even then, I had been working.
Always working.
Always somewhere else.
“I’m meeting Vanessa tomorrow,” Claire said.
“She agreed to talk if I don’t involve police.”
Brooks muttered, “Damn.”
Claire smiled faintly.
“Don’t be angry.”
I started crying harder.
Of course she knew me.
“I’m being careful.”
No, Claire.
You weren’t safe.
She looked into the camera one last time.
“I love you, Michael.”
Then the video ended.
I couldn’t speak.
Brooks gave me several minutes.
Finally, I asked, “Who sent this?”
“We don’t know.”
“Where has that video been for seven years?”
“We don’t know.”
“Did Claire upload it somewhere?”
“We’re checking metadata.”
I stood.
“I want Evan back in that room.”
Brooks looked at me.
“Michael—”
“He lied again.”
“I’ll handle Evan.”
“No. He told us he first met Vanessa last year.”
“I heard him.”
“Claire says they knew each other seven years ago.”
Brooks stood.
“Which is why I’m going to question him without you.”
I wanted to argue.
But he was right.
Twenty minutes later, Brooks returned.
“He admitted it.”
My stomach hardened.
“What?”
“Evan met Vanessa eight years ago.”
“Before Claire died.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“At an investment conference.”
“Why lie?”
“Because Vanessa was working as a private corporate researcher.”
“For whom?”
“He claims he doesn’t know.”
“Do you believe him?”
“No.”
I laughed bitterly.
“What else?”
“He says Vanessa offered to help him find investors.”
“Did Claire discover that?”
“Yes.”
“And the hotel photo?”
“Evan says Claire confronted Vanessa after learning she was gathering information on your company.”
“Then what happened?”
“According to him, Vanessa disappeared.”
“For two years.”
“Apparently.”
“And then she magically met me at a charity dinner.”
Brooks nodded.
“Looks less magical now.”
I remembered that night.
Vanessa had bumped into me near the bar.
Spilled champagne on my jacket.
Laughed.
Apologized.
We talked for three hours.
I had thought fate brought us together.
Maybe fate had nothing to do with it.
“Did Vanessa cause Claire’s accident?”
Brooks was careful.
“We have no evidence of that.”
“But?”
“But we’re reopening the file.”
My knees weakened.
I sat down.
Brooks continued.
“There’s more from the storage unit.”
I almost told him I couldn’t take more.
Instead, I waited.
“We found payments from a shell company to Sentinel Strategic.”
“Whose shell company?”
“We’re tracing it.”
“What does that have to do with Richard?”
“He’s listed as an authorized representative.”
“So Richard hired them?”
“Possibly.”
“To spy on me for seven years?”
“We don’t know if it was continuous.”
“Why would anyone care about my company seven years ago? We were tiny.”
Brooks pulled out another paper.
“Because Carter Biomedical owned something valuable before you realized how valuable it was.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Patent 4417.”
My heart stopped.
Patent 4417 was the original sensor technology behind our medical monitoring platform.
Claire helped finance the first prototype with her inheritance.
After her death, the patent became the foundation of everything.
Halcyon wanted our company largely because of that patent portfolio.
Brooks continued.
“According to these documents, someone attempted to buy the patent from Evan eight years ago.”
“He couldn’t sell it.”
“He apparently considered it.”
I stood.
“Claire would have stopped him.”
“Yes.”
“And she found out.”
“It appears so.”
My phone buzzed again.
This time, Detective Brooks looked at the screen before me.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He handed it over.
A photograph.
Vanessa.
Sitting in what looked like a motel room.
Her face bruised.
Her hands bound in front of her.
A handwritten sign rested against her chest.
MICHAEL, I LIED TO YOU.
Below the photograph was a message.
SHE KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED TO CLAIRE.
A second message arrived.
MIDNIGHT. COME TO THE OLD CARTER BIOMEDICAL LAB.
A third.
NO POLICE.
Brooks immediately started calling officers.
I stared at Vanessa’s face.
After everything she had done, I should have felt nothing.
But she was still Noah’s mother.
And someone had her.
“Is it real?” I asked.
“We’ll authenticate it.”
“What if she’s in danger?”
“Then we handle it.”
I looked at the message again.
The old Carter Biomedical lab had been abandoned five years ago.
Few people even remembered it.
Claire had helped me paint those walls.
She had stood inside that building when we built our first prototype.
Someone chose that location intentionally.
At 11:42 p.m., police tactical units surrounded the lab from a distance.
I wore a wire.
Brooks hated the idea of me entering.
But whoever sent the message demanded me.
The lab was dark.
I opened the old metal door.
“Vanessa?”
Nothing.
Then a light switched on.
She was sitting in a chair at the center of the room.
Her wrists were tied.
“Michael.”
I stepped toward her.
“Who did this?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For all of it.”
A sound came from behind me.
I turned.
A man stepped from the shadows.
Gray hair.
Expensive suit.
Richard Hale.
He held no weapon that I could see.
He simply smiled.
“Finally,” he said.
Vanessa began crying.
“Richard, please.”
He ignored her.
I stared at him.
“What happened to Claire?”
Richard’s smile disappeared.
Then another voice came from deeper in the darkness.
“She found out too much.”
May you like
I knew that voice.
Evan stepped into the light.
