Chapter 6 - Grant Whitmore
Grant called at 2:11 in the morning.
Not Preston.
Not Caroline.
Me.
Jonathan put the call on speaker.
“Elizabeth Bennett.”
Grant’s voice was warm.
Cultured.
Almost pleasant.
“I’ve wanted to meet you for years.”
“I doubt that.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“You bought Meridian Crest from underneath my brother.”
“That takes intelligence.”
“Patience.”
“And a certain willingness to be disliked.”
“I suspect we have that in common.”
Jonathan silently signaled for the trace team to begin.
I said,
“Where is Richard?”
A pause.
Then Grant laughed softly.
“Straight to business.”
“Where is he?”
“Alive, last I saw him.”
“Five weeks ago?”
Another pause.
“You have the video.”
“I have enough.”
“No.”
His tone changed slightly.
“You have pieces.”
“And pieces are dangerous when people arrange them incorrectly.”
“Then help me arrange them.”
“I’d rather help you avoid being buried underneath them.”
Jonathan’s trace specialist shook his head.
No location yet.
Grant continued.
“My brother is going to tell you he was trapped.”
“He will tell you he made mistakes.”
“He will tell you other people were worse.”
“He has been telling himself those stories for twenty years.”
“And you?”
“I never needed stories.”
The honesty chilled me.
“You tried to have me killed tonight.”
“No.”
“The SUV.”
“Not mine.”
“G.W.”
“There are more people in California with those initials than you might imagine.”
I looked at Caroline.
She was staring at the speaker.
“Your niece is listening.”
Grant was silent.
Then,
“Hello, Caroline.”
She stepped closer.
“Did you hurt Richard?”
“No.”
“Did you try to hurt Elizabeth?”
“No.”
“Are you lying?”
Grant chuckled.
“You sound like your mother.”
Caroline’s jaw tightened.
“What do you want?”
“Meridian.”
There it was.
I said,
“You cannot have it.”
“Everything has a price.”
“Not everything.”
“People who say that usually haven’t seen the correct number.”
“I have.”
He laughed again.
Then his voice became cold.
“You acquired Meridian because several lenders quietly decided Preston had become a liability.”
“Correct.”
“What you do not know is why.”
Jonathan glanced at me.
Grant continued.
“Your purchase was not merely a business opportunity.”
“You were allowed to buy it.”
“By whom?”
“The people Richard was trying to expose.”
Nobody spoke.
Grant said,
“They wanted Preston weakened.”
“They wanted the records consolidated.”
“And now, conveniently, those records are under the control of one woman.”
“You.”
I felt the implication immediately.
A trap.
Not necessarily for me personally.
But structurally.
Someone had engineered the circumstances that made Northstar’s acquisition possible.
“Why?”
“So they can destroy everything at once.”
Jonathan wrote something.
I asked,
“Who?”
Grant’s answer came without hesitation.
“Senator Malcolm Voss.”
Jonathan’s head snapped up.
The name was familiar.
Not because I followed politics closely.
Because Voss had spent fifteen years building a reputation around infrastructure investment and economic development.
His former law partners had advised multiple Whitmore entities.
Grant continued.
“Voss used Whitmore Capital for years.”
“Richard discovered it.”
“Preston helped hide it.”
“And now everyone wants the past buried.”
“Including you?”
“I want to survive.”
“That is not the same as being innocent.”
“I never claimed innocence.”
The trace specialist raised three fingers.
Almost there.
Grant said,
“You have until noon tomorrow.”
“For what?”
“Return voting control of Meridian to the Whitmore trust.”
“No.”
“Then the records Richard collected will disappear permanently.”
“You have them?”
“Some.”
“And Richard?”
Another pause.
“You should ask your son what Richard gave him.”
I looked at Ethan.
He looked stunned.
“What are you talking about?”
Grant said,
“Good night, Elizabeth.”
The call ended.
The trace failed.
Ethan stood frozen.
I asked,
“Did Richard contact you?”
“No.”
“Think.”
“I’m telling you no.”
Jonathan said,
“Not directly, maybe.”
Ethan paced.
Then stopped.
“Wait.”
He pulled out his phone.
“Three months ago, someone sent me a package at work.”
“What package?”
“A book.”
Caroline frowned.
“What book?”
“An old copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.”
I stared at him.
Richard’s favorite novel.
He had read it every few years.
When Ethan was eight, Richard had given him an illustrated children’s version.
“Where is it?”
“At our apartment in San Francisco.”
Jonathan immediately ordered two guards to retrieve it.
Ethan looked at me.
“I thought it was some kind of joke.”
“Was there a note?”
He nodded slowly.
“One sentence.”
“What?”
May you like
He looked suddenly sick.
“It said, ‘Every prison has a key.’”
