Chapter 8 - The knocking stopped.
Nobody breathed.
Daniel motioned toward the back room.
Graham carried Maisie.
They waited.
A voice came from outside.
“Federal agents.”
Victor looked at Daniel.
Daniel shook his head.
“No.”
Graham whispered:
“How do you know?”
“Because federal agents don't knock like that.”
Another voice called:
“Mr. Grant, open the door.”
Graham recognized it.
Dr. Mercer.
The psychiatrist from Northvale.
The man who had signed Maisie's intake documents.
Daniel whispered:
“There is a second exit.”
They moved.
The door at the rear opened onto an alley.
Two black vans waited there.
Too late.
They were surrounded.
Daniel pushed Graham into a room.
“Hide.”
“Where?”
Daniel pointed at a trapdoor beneath the floor.
Graham pulled it open.
Maisie climbed inside.
He followed.
Victor stayed above.
“What about you?”
Victor looked at him.
“Maybe it's time I stop running.”
He closed the trapdoor.
Voices entered the building.
Graham listened in the darkness.
“Where are they?”
Victor answered calmly.
“Who?”
“You know who.”
“I don't.”
A gunshot exploded.
Maisie flinched.
Graham covered her ears.
Another gunshot.
Then silence.
Graham opened the trapdoor.
Victor was on the floor.
Blood on his shoulder.
Mercer stood over him.
Two men searched the room.
Then Mercer said:
“Take Hale.”
The men dragged Victor away.
Graham waited until they left.
Daniel reopened the back entrance.
“We go now.”
They ran.
The city swallowed them.
Three hours later, they reached a motel outside the county.
Graham placed Maisie on the bed.
She was asleep almost instantly.
Daniel sat across from him.
“You need to tell me everything.”
Graham stared.
“You knew Claire.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She hired me because someone was following her.”
“Was it Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
“How did Claire find you?”
“Her father.”
Graham froze.
“My father?”
Daniel nodded.
“Your father contacted Claire before he died.”
“What did he tell her?”
“He told her the Grant trust had been used to fund Northvale.”
Graham looked at the wall.
“My father was involved.”
“Not willingly.”
“What does that mean?”
Daniel opened his laptop.
A scanned letter appeared.
Your father's handwriting.
He was asking Claire to expose the network if anything happened to him.
At the bottom was a line:
THE TRUST WAS DESIGNED TO PROTECT OUR CHILDREN. THEY TURNED IT INTO A WEAPON.
Graham swallowed.
“My father knew.”
“Yes.”
“And Claire knew.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn't she tell me?”
“Because she thought you were being watched.”
Graham looked at Maisie.
A horrifying thought struck him.
“Is that why she left me?”
“She never left you.”
Graham stared.
“What?”
“Claire was planning to disappear.”
“Why?”
“To protect you.”
Daniel opened another file.
A hotel reservation.
A flight itinerary.
A bank account.
All booked under another name.
Claire had planned to leave the country.
With Maisie.
The day after she died.
Graham sat down.
For three years he had believed his wife had been terrified, unstable, exhausted.
Maybe none of that was true.
Then Daniel opened a photograph.
A hospital corridor.
Claire was standing there.
Alive.
Hours before her death.
Beside her was Evelyn.
Behind them stood a man Graham recognized.
His own father.
Graham stood so fast the chair fell.
“That photo is impossible.”
Daniel shook his head.
“It was taken forty minutes before your father died.”
Graham stared.
“My father died six months before Claire.”
“Yes.”
The photograph had been altered.
Or someone had lied about when it was taken.
Then Daniel zoomed in.
A digital timestamp.
August 17.
The day of the supposed car crash that killed Graham's father.
Graham whispered:
“He wasn't dead.”
Daniel didn't answer.
Maisie suddenly woke.
“Daddy?”
Graham turned.
She pointed at Daniel.
“I know him.”
Daniel went still.
“What?”
Maisie climbed off the bed.
“You came to Mommy's room.”
Daniel's face changed.
“When?”
“The night she died.”
Graham stared.
“You told her to run.”
Daniel looked at him.
Then at Maisie.
“Yes.”
Graham's voice tightened.
“Then why didn't she?”
Daniel swallowed.
“Because someone got there first.”
“Who?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Sloane.”
Graham stared.
Then Maisie said something that made Daniel step back.
“But Sloane wasn't alone.”
“What do you mean?”
Maisie pointed at the door.
“She had Grandpa.”
Graham felt the room tilt.
“My father?”
May you like
Maisie nodded.
“Grandpa was alive.”
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