Chapter 6 - Eleven Minutes in the Dark
The room went black.
Maya heard Vanessa move.
“Stop!”
Something slammed into the counter.
Glass shattered.
Ethan shouted, “Lock the doors!”
Emergency lights flickered on.
Vanessa was gone.
The rear door stood open.
Brooks ran outside.
Randall called for backup.
Maya followed Ethan toward the hall.
“Noah.”
“He’s still at the hospital.”
“I know.”
She grabbed his arm.
“Call whoever is with him.”
Ethan immediately dialed.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
His face changed.
“My sister is supposed to be there.”
He called the hospital directly.
After thirty seconds, he went pale.
“What?”
Ethan lowered the phone.
“Noah was discharged.”
Maya stared at him.
“What do you mean discharged?”
“Someone signed him out.”
“Who?”
“My sister.”
“But she isn’t answering.”
Ethan ran for the garage.
Randall blocked him.
“We need to coordinate.”
“That’s my son.”
“And if someone planned this, they may be waiting for you.”
Maya picked up Claire’s letter from the floor.
A second piece of paper had slipped from the envelope.
She unfolded it.
It wasn’t a letter.
It was a bank statement.
Payments.
Monthly transfers from a company called Greenway Consulting to someone identified only as A.B.
Brooks looked over her shoulder.
“A.B.”
Everyone turned toward him.
His expression hardened.
“You think that’s me.”
Randall said, “Is it?”
“No.”
“Initials match.”
“I’ve never heard of Greenway.”
Ethan walked over.
“Who owns it?”
Brooks pulled out his phone.
“Give me thirty seconds.”
He searched.
His eyes narrowed.
“Shell company.”
“Registered to?”
“A law firm in Delaware.”
Maya looked at Vanessa’s abandoned purse.
It sat beneath the kitchen table.
“Can we search that?”
Randall put on gloves.
Inside were cosmetics, a wallet, keys, and two phones.
Ethan frowned.
“She has two phones?”
Randall opened the second device.
Locked.
A message appeared on the screen.
NOAH SECURED. WAITING FOR INSTRUCTIONS.
Ethan made a sound Maya had never heard from another human being.
Pure panic.
“Who sent that?”
The number was hidden.
Another message arrived.
SHE FOUND THE LETTERS. PLAN B.
Maya looked toward the open door.
“This wasn’t about framing me.”
Ethan’s eyes met hers.
“What?”
“She needed me gone because she knew I had Claire’s warning.”
Brooks nodded.
“And Noah falling into the pool?”
Maya’s stomach twisted.
“A distraction.”
Ethan stared at the phone.
Then another message appeared.
This one contained a photograph.
Noah was asleep in his car seat.
Beside him sat Ethan’s sister, Rachel.
Her head leaned against the window.
Her eyes were closed.
Too still.
May you like
Below the picture were seven words.
BRING CLAIRE’S LETTERS IF YOU WANT THEM BACK.
