Chapter 8 - The Brother
Nathan Callahan arrived furious.
"You think I helped kill Claire?"
Grant stood in the library with Detective Ruiz between them.
"I think your voice is on her recording."
Nathan laughed bitterly.
"Because I was there."
Grant froze.
"You never told me."
"Claire made me promise."
"Everybody keeps saying that."
Nathan's anger cracked.
"Because she stopped trusting you with anything connected to Renata."
That hit hard.
Grant looked away.
Nathan continued.
"She called me because she found transfers from the family office. She thought somebody was using Dad's old authorization codes."
Ruiz asked, "Who had access?"
"Grant. Me. Simon. And our family-office director, Margaret Dunn."
Grant looked up.
Margaret had been with the family for twenty-six years.
She sent Christmas gifts to Lily.
She had stood beside Grant when the police told him Claire was dead.
Nathan pulled out his phone.
"Claire sent me one picture that night."
It showed a spreadsheet.
At the bottom was a user login.
MDUNN-04.
Grant sat down.
"Margaret?"
Nathan nodded.
"I confronted her after Claire died. She said Claire had misunderstood routine transfers."
"And you believed her?"
"I wanted to."
Grant gave him a hard look.
Nathan answered it.
"Yeah. Now you know what that feels like."
Emma was upstairs with Lily when the lights went out.
The security system beeped once.
Then silence.
Emma immediately locked Lily's bedroom door.
"Stay behind me."
Footsteps moved in the hallway.
A man's voice called, "Emma? It's security."
She did not answer.
The handle turned.
Locked.
Then a key entered from the other side.
Emma grabbed the heavy lamp.
The door opened.
Simon Hale stepped in.
He looked at Lily.
"Give me the memory card."
Emma raised the lamp.
"Come closer and I'll break your nose."
Simon smiled.
"You think Grant will protect you forever?"
Then Lily spoke from behind Emma.
Clearer than before.
"My dad is downstairs."
Simon went still.
And from the hall came Grant's voice.
"She's right."
After Simon escaped, Lily refused to sleep in her bedroom. Grant carried blankets into the library and built a clumsy tent between two sofas.
"This is terrible," Lily said.
"I run a biotech company, not a camping company."
May you like
Emma tied one corner tighter. "Clearly."
For the first time that night, Lily smiled. It lasted only a second, but everyone noticed.
