Chapter 5
I wanted to run to the hotel.
David blocked the door.
“No.”
“She might die.”
“And if you show up, Marcus gets exactly what he wants. You at another scene. Another woman hurt. Another story he can control.”
I hated him for being right.
Aunt Margaret called 911.
Then private security.
Then a federal contact whose name she did not explain.
My father sat rigid in the chair, one hand pressed over his heart.
“Dad?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“No,” he said. “But I’m not leaving.”
Police reached the Copley in twelve minutes.
Lauren was alive.
Barely conscious.
Not from violence.
From pills.
Too many, but not enough to kill if help came fast.
Beside her bed was a note typed on hotel stationery.
I lied. Robert is dangerous. Ethan is unstable. Marcus tried to help us.
Convenient.
Too convenient.
A detective named Hannah Cole met us at the hospital.
She had tired eyes and no patience for rich men’s explanations.
“Mrs. Hale is stable,” she said. “We found sedatives in her system.”
“Did she take them herself?”
“That’s the question.”
David handed over Lauren’s call recording.
Detective Cole listened without expression until Lauren said Marcus is going to kill me.
Then her eyes sharpened.
“Where is Marcus Reed?”
“Missing,” David said.
Not for long.
By evening, federal agents froze Blackridge accounts.
By night, Marcus’s penthouse was searched.
They found laptops.
Passports.
Cash.
A folder on me.
A folder on my father.
A folder labeled Eleanor Hale.
My mother.
I could not open it at first.
Aunt Margaret did.
Her face changed as she read.
“Ethan.”
“What?”
She looked at Dad.
He stood slowly.
Margaret handed him a photo.
My mother in a hospital bed.
Marcus, younger, standing near the door.
My father grabbed the table.
“He was there?”
David took the file.
It showed visitor logs from my mother’s final month.
Marcus had visited three times under a fake name.
I felt sick.
“He told me he met her once at the funeral.”
Margaret’s eyes shone.
“Eleanor suspected his family. She must have confronted him.”
Detective Cole asked, “Did your mother’s condition change suddenly?”
Dad nodded.
“She was stable. Then she wasn’t.”
No one said murder.
Not yet.
But the word filled the room.
Lauren woke at midnight.
She asked for me.
Detective Cole advised against it.
I went anyway, with David beside me and an officer at the door.
Lauren looked small in the hospital bed.
For years, beauty had been part of her power.
Now she looked stripped of it.
Just a frightened woman with pale lips and a monitor beeping beside her.
“Did Marcus drug you?” I asked.
Tears slid into her hair.
“Yes.”
“Why should I believe you?”
She closed her eyes.
“Because I don’t have anything left to gain.”
That was not enough.
But it sounded closer to truth than love ever had from her.
She told us Marcus had recruited her before she met me.
Her job had been simple.
Date me.
Marry me.
Encourage distance from Dad.
Make Margaret look bitter.
Watch for the safe.
When I trusted her fully, she would help move shares.
Then she and Marcus would leave with enough money to disappear.
“Were you lovers the whole time?” I asked.
She nodded.
The answer hurt.
Still.
Even after everything.
“And my mother?”
Lauren swallowed.
“I didn’t know until last year.”
I leaned closer.
“What did you learn?”
“Marcus bragged when he was drunk. He said Eleanor Hale died before she could ruin his father. He said your grief made you easier.”
My breath went out of me.
Dad made a broken sound behind me.
Lauren reached for my hand.
I did not give it to her.
“Ethan, I’m sorry.”
“No,” I said. “You’re scared.”
She cried harder.
“Both.”
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Then she whispered, “There’s one more file. Marcus kept it because he liked trophies.”
“What file?”
“Your mother recorded him.”
My whole body froze.
“Where?”
Lauren looked toward the officer at the door, then back at me.
“In the clock.”
I stared at her.
“The fireplace clock?”
May you like
She nodded.
“The old camera wasn’t broken when she used it.”
