Chapter 13 - Seventy-Five Thousand Dollars
Daniel’s phone went straight to voicemail.
His car was still impounded.
His credit cards had not been used.
The hospital security camera showed him leaving in jeans, a borrowed sweatshirt, and a baseball cap pulled low over his swollen eye.
A gray sedan picked him up.
The plate was registered to a dead man.
“Very subtle,” Naomi said.
I was beyond sarcasm.
We returned to her house at dusk.
Mom sat in the living room with Atlas, Naomi’s retired German shepherd, asleep against her slippers.
“I need you to tell me about the seventy-five thousand dollars,” I said.
Her face changed instantly.
So she knew.
“Claire—”
“No more protecting me.”
“I wasn’t protecting you.”
“Then who?”
“Daniel.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Why?”
“Because he gave the money away.”
I stopped.
“To whom?”
“To Helen Price’s niece.”
Naomi had just entered behind me.
She froze.
“What?”
Mom looked at her.
“To you.”
Naomi stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“After Robert died, Daniel brought me an envelope. He said Shaw paid him to keep quiet. He couldn’t keep it.”
Naomi’s face had gone pale.
“I never received seventy-five thousand dollars.”
“Daniel said he sent it anonymously.”
“I received ten thousand.”
Mom frowned.
“What?”
“An envelope came after Aunt Helen died. Cashier’s check. Ten thousand dollars. No note.”
“Daniel gave you seventy-five.”
“Then sixty-five disappeared.”
I looked at Naomi.
“Who delivered it?”
“I don’t know. It came by mail.”
“Was it ever traced?”
“I was twenty-six and grieving. I used it to pay legal bills and funeral expenses.”
Mom pressed a hand to her mouth.
“Daniel thought all of it reached you.”
That changed nothing and everything.
My brother had taken blood money.
Then tried to give it away.
Someone had stolen most of even that.
“Who knew?” I asked.
“Me,” Mom said. “Daniel. Maybe Shaw.”
“Did Dad?”
“He was dead.”
I sat beside her.
“Mom, when did Vanessa enter Daniel’s life?”
“Eleven years ago.”
“Two years after Dad died.”
“Yes.”
“Did she know about Northline before she met him?”
“I don’t know.”
I thought of the $212,000 paid through her company.
Maybe Vanessa had not been dragged into Daniel’s mess.
Maybe she had been sent into it.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Claire Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“This is Martin Shaw.”
Naomi moved closer.
I put it on speaker.
“You have a lot of nerve calling me.”
“I have information about your brother.”
“Where is he?”
“Safe for the moment.”
“From whom?”
“You.”
I almost laughed.
“You kidnapped him yesterday.”
“Vanessa did.”
“For you.”
“She has made many independent decisions.”
“Why should I believe anything you say?”
“You shouldn’t. You should verify it.”
That sounded like Dad.
I hated him for borrowing the language of honest men.
“What do you want?”
“The original drive.”
“No.”
“Then Daniel may do something reckless.”
“He’s already very good at that.”
Shaw sighed.
“Claire, your brother is not running from me. He is coming to me.”
I stared at the phone.
“Why?”
“To trade himself.”
“For what?”
“Your mother’s safety.”
Mom gripped the arm of the chair.
“What does that mean?”
Shaw continued as if he had not heard her.
“Daniel believes that if he gives me the remaining evidence and signs a statement taking responsibility for financial exploitation, this ends.”
“And does it?”
“No.”
That surprised me.
“Then why tell me?”
“Because Daniel is wrong about who controls this.”
“Harlan?”
Silence.
“Martin?”
“Paul Harlan is a bureaucrat with expensive appetites.”
“Then who?”
“You have been looking at Northline as if it were a criminal enterprise.”
“It is.”
“It is also a service provider.”
“For thieves.”
“For people who pay.”
“Who pays?”
He paused.
“Families.”
I looked at Mom.
“What?”
“Adult children who want inheritances early. Hospitals that want difficult patients moved. Developers who want property. Lawyers who want fees. Sometimes politicians who want donors protected.”
“You built a marketplace for elder abuse.”
“I built nothing.”
“You profited from it.”
“Yes.”
The admission was so calm that my stomach turned.
“Why are you confessing?”
“Because I am seventy-one, Claire, and for the first time I understand the business from the other side.”
Naomi mouthed: keep him talking.
I asked, “Someone is targeting you?”
“My physician recommended a cognitive evaluation yesterday.”
“Kessler?”
A humorless laugh.
“No. Kessler is gone.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect sympathy?”
“No. I expect self-interest.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Protection.”
“In exchange?”
“Everything.”
Mom whispered, “Don’t.”
Shaw heard her.
“Hello, Evelyn.”
She stood, anger straightening her spine.
“You came to my husband’s funeral.”
“Yes.”
“You ate food in my kitchen.”
“Yes.”
“You looked me in the eye.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew.”
Shaw did not answer.
Mom’s voice shook.
“I hope you live long enough to be afraid every day.”
He exhaled.
“I already do.”
Then he gave us an address.
An abandoned printing warehouse outside Dayton.
“Daniel will be there at midnight.”
“With you?”
“If I survive long enough.”
The call ended.
Naomi immediately started arranging surveillance.
I turned to Mom.
“You’re staying here.”
“No.”
“Mom.”
“I have spent a year being told where I can go.”
“This is different.”
“It always is when someone else makes the rule.”
She was right, which was infuriating.
“You cannot come to a criminal rendezvous.”
“I’m not asking.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Giving you this.”
She reached under the collar of her blouse and removed a thin chain.
A tiny brass key hung from it.
I stared.
“The boathouse key?”
“No.”
“What does it open?”
“Your father’s safe-deposit box.”
I almost stopped breathing.
“You said the boathouse key was what he left.”
“I said he left a key.”
“Mom.”
“This one he told me never to surrender.”
“Where is the box?”
She met my eyes.
“At the bank where Paul Harlan’s wife is president.”
Of course it was.
“What’s inside?”
Mom looked toward the dark window.
“I don’t know.”
Then Atlas lifted his head.
A car had stopped outside.
Naomi reached for her weapon.
Headlights went dark.
No door opened.
My phone buzzed with a new message.
A photo.
Daniel, sitting in a warehouse chair.
Alive.
Underneath it:
MIDNIGHT. BRING EVELYN TOO.
Shaw had not sent that message.
May you like
The sender signed only two letters.
P.H.
