Chapter 11 - The Man Behind the Blackmail
Luis pulled me beneath the conference table while security guards rushed toward the broken window.
“Stay down,” he whispered.
A shape moved in the hall. Then a fire alarm began to scream.
Ethan shoved past his attorney and ran toward the noise.
“Where are you going?” I yelled.
He did not answer.
Vanessa followed him.
The building emptied into the parking lot, where cold rain swept across the pavement. Sirens approached from three directions.
Marcus Voss was gone.
But Ethan had disappeared too.
“He’s with Marcus,” Vanessa said.
“Or he ran,” Miriam replied.
Vanessa hugged herself. “He won’t run. He thinks Marcus has the original film.”
“What does Marcus want?” I asked.
“The trust.”
“He can’t have it.”
“He believes if I marry him, he can claim what belongs to my father.”
The confession was so absurd that I almost laughed. “You are married to Ethan.”
“Marcus told me Ethan would be arrested. He said he could make the charges disappear.”
“And you considered it?”
Vanessa met my eyes. “I considered surviving.”
The answer angered me, but I understood more than I wanted to.
Three hours later, Ethan called from a pay phone.
“Mom,” he said. “I need you to listen.”
“Where are you?”
“I can’t say.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No. Marcus has Daniel.”
I gripped the phone. “What?”
“He took him from the diner. He says he’ll kill him unless I get access to the trust.”
“Why call me?”
“Because you can authorize a distribution.”
“No.”
“Mom, please.”
“You threw me through a glass door.”
“I know.”
His voice cracked.
“I know what I did.”
“Then call the police.”
“Marcus has people watching them.”
“Who is them?”
“Daniel and Vanessa.”
Vanessa shook her head beside me. She had not left my side since the blackout.
“Ethan,” I said, “where is the original film?”
He went silent.
“You have it,” I continued. “Marcus is using a copy. The original is with you.”
Another silence.
“How did you know?”
“Your father’s records. He wrote that the second danger was the person who taught you love means protection from consequences. He did not say Marcus.”
Ethan breathed unevenly.
“I have the film,” he admitted. “Samuel gave it to me two years ago.”
My heart sank.
“Why didn’t you destroy it?”
“I wanted to confess.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I was afraid.”
“You were afraid of consequences, not of what you did.”
“Maybe both.”
Miriam motioned for me to keep him talking while Luis traced the call.
Ethan suddenly said, “Mom, there’s something else. Vanessa knew where Daniel was before today.”
Vanessa’s face went white.
The line went dead.
Luis looked up from his equipment.
“We have a location.”
“Where?”
May you like
He pointed toward the abandoned water station.
“The old tunnel,” he said. “And if Ethan is there, he may not be our only problem.”
