Chapter 5 - A Message at the Window
Harrison swept the house room by room while Elara sat on the kitchen floor with Elias pressed against her. Julian knelt in front of them, one hand resting on the baby’s blanket and the other holding the envelope inside a clear evidence sleeve.
“No one came through the door,” Harrison said. “The brick was thrown from the alley.”
“They knew where we lived,” Elara said.
“The address is public,” Julian replied.
“That doesn’t make it less frightening.”
He looked as though he wanted to touch her but did not know whether she would allow it. She closed the space herself and leaned against his shoulder.
“I’m angry with you,” she whispered.
“You should be.”
“That is not an apology.”
“I’m sorry.”
The words were simple, and because they were simple, she believed them. Then the phone in the hallway rang.
Harrison moved first. He unplugged it and checked the caller display. “A blocked number.”
The house had been quiet for less than an hour when Nadine arrived with a hard drive and a bruise darkening beneath her left eye.
“I was followed,” she said. “Two men in a gray van. They tried to force me off the road.”
Elara helped her sit. “Did they get the drive?”
“No.” Nadine held it out. “But they got close enough to say Grant’s name.”
Julian plugged the drive into an isolated laptop. It contained copies of the Bellrose server, including a folder titled ORCHARD MERIDIAN—RESTRICTED. He looked at Elara before opening it.
“You knew there was a restricted folder?” she asked.
“Not the contents.”
“You see how that sounds.”
“Yes.”
The folder held acquisition documents, internal memos, and photographs of Riverbend from years before. One image showed a younger Julian standing beside a maintenance shed, his face thinner and his hair longer. Elara recognized the place from the stories about his father.
“Why were you inside Bellrose?” she asked.
Julian sat back. “I worked there under a contractor’s name.”
“When?”
“For almost two years.”
“You told me you were consulting in Detroit.”
“I was doing that too.”
Elara stood. “How many versions of your life are there?”
“The version that kept us safe.”
“You keep using safety as if it excuses lying.”
Harrison interrupted. “We have movement outside.”
The lights went out.
Elias woke and began to cry. A car door slammed in the alley. Harrison pulled the curtains closed while Julian carried Elara and the baby into the pantry, where the walls were thickest.
“Stay here,” Julian said.
“No.”
“Elara—”
“I am done being moved from room to room while men decide what happens to me.”
He looked at her, then nodded. “All right. Stay behind me.”
The back door rattled. Harrison reached it first, but the lock held. A second impact cracked the frame. Nadine grabbed a cast-iron skillet from the counter, and Elara almost laughed at the absurdity until the glass in the kitchen window shattered.
“Down!” Harrison shouted.
They dropped. A small metal cylinder rolled across the floor and hissed. Julian kicked it through the broken window before it released more than a cloud of bitter smoke.
The attackers fled when sirens sounded in the distance. Harrison had triggered a silent alarm linked to a neighboring patrol service.
When the police arrived, Grant’s attorney arrived ten minutes later.
“He says he has nothing to do with this,” the attorney announced from the porch.
Elara stepped into the cold night. “Tell him I believe him about one thing.”
“What thing?”
“He has nothing left to do with my life.”
The attorney’s face remained blank, but his eyes went to Julian.
Later, Nadine opened the restricted folder again. A single file had been added within the last hour. It contained a photograph of Elias’s hospital bracelet.
Elara’s breath stopped.
“How did they get this?” she asked.
Nadine shook her head. “The hospital keeps visitor logs.”
Julian closed the laptop. “We need to move.”
“We are not running.”
“We are relocating. There’s a difference.”
“You said the same thing when we left my family.”
He looked toward the bassinet, where Elias had finally fallen asleep again. “This is bigger than Bellrose.”
“Then let me see the whole thing.”
Julian’s silence became its own answer.
May you like
Elara walked to the broken window. Rain had begun again, darkening the sill. In the street, a man stood beside a gray van, watching the house. When Harrison ran outside, the man was gone.
On the floor beneath the window lay a second envelope. Inside was a photocopy of Elara’s birth certificate, marked in red ink with a word she had never seen attached to her name: BENEFICIARY.
