Chapter 3 - The Grandfather Clock
The drive to the Connecticut coast was a suffocating nightmare.
I sat in the back of Daniel’s armored SUV, holding Emily’s trembling hand. The red mark on her cheek was a glaring reminder of the monster sitting in the front passenger seat.
Rain lashed against the tinted windows, blurring the highway lights into streaks of harsh white.
“I’m so sorry, Mom,” Emily mouthed silently, terrified to speak aloud.
I squeezed her hand. I couldn't be angry with her. She was a twenty-three-year-old girl who had grown up without a father, manipulated by a billionaire who offered her the world and then weaponized her trust.
Eleanor sat perfectly still beside me, her eyes closed, silently clutching the rusted iron key she had given me.
My mind raced. Laura isn't waiting at the marina. She's waiting in the water.
What did that mean? Was Laura on a boat?
Daniel’s voice cut through the silence. “The paper in the necklace listed a slip number at the Harbor Point Marina. Slip 42. If this is a trap, Claire, I will leave you and your daughter at the bottom of Long Island Sound.”
“I don't know anything about Slip 42,” I said coldly.
“We’ll see,” Daniel replied, not looking back.
We arrived at the marina just after midnight. The rain was coming down in sheets, the wind howling off the dark, churning water.
Daniel’s lawyer, Sterling, stayed in the driver’s seat. Daniel pulled a heavy, black handgun from his coat and turned to us.
“Get out. You walk in front of me.”
We stepped into the freezing rain. My white silk reception dress clung to my skin, heavy and soaked. Emily huddled against me.
We walked down the creaking wooden docks. The boats strained against their mooring lines, groaning in the storm.
We reached Slip 42.
There was no yacht. There was no speed boat.
Moored in the slip was a massive, dilapidated houseboat. Its paint was peeling, its windows dark.
“Open the door,” Daniel commanded, shoving the gun against my spine.
I turned the brass knob. It was unlocked.
We stepped inside. The air smelled of old wood and seawater. The main cabin was entirely empty, save for a single piece of furniture standing against the far wall.
An enormous, antique grandfather clock.
I recognized it instantly. It had stood in my mother's hallway for thirty years. I had no idea how it had gotten here.
Daniel laughed, a harsh, grating sound.
“Of course,” he muttered. “Margaret’s obsession with time.”
He pushed past me and walked toward the clock.
“This was never about a boat,” Daniel said, running his hand over the polished mahogany. “Laura gave Margaret the ledger. She hid it inside the one thing she knew I wouldn't take when I cleared out the cottage.”
“Don't open it,” Eleanor said, her voice shaking violently.
Daniel ignored her. He reached for the glass door of the clock face.
But as his hand touched the brass handle, Emily gasped.
She pointed at the floorboards beneath the clock.
A dark, thick liquid was seeping from underneath the heavy wooden base, pooling onto the linoleum floor.
It was blood. Fresh blood.
Daniel frowned. He yanked the door of the grandfather clock open.
A body tumbled forward, crashing onto the floor at our feet.
Emily screamed. I pulled her face into my chest, turning away in horror.
It was a man. He was wearing a dark suit. He had a single gunshot wound to the chest.
“Who is that?” I whispered, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm.
Daniel stared at the dead man, his confident facade shattering for the very first time. His face went completely pale.
“That’s impossible,” Daniel breathed.
“Do you know him?” Sterling asked, stepping into the cabin behind us.
Daniel looked up, his eyes wild.
“It’s Thomas,” Daniel said, his voice trembling. “The private investigator I hired to track Laura ten years ago.”
“Why is he in the clock?” I asked.
But Daniel wasn't listening to me. He was staring at the dead man’s hand.
Clutched tightly in the corpse’s stiff fingers was a faded Polaroid photograph.
Daniel ripped it from the dead man's grip.
I caught a glimpse of it.
It was a picture of Daniel, twenty-one years younger, standing on the deck of a yacht. He was holding a bloody wrench. And lying at his feet was the real Nathan Whitmore.
It was absolute proof of murder.
Daniel shoved the photograph into his pocket. He looked frantically inside the empty grandfather clock.
“The ledger is gone,” Daniel panicked. “The bearer bonds are gone. She beat us here.”
Suddenly, the heavy wooden door of the houseboat slammed shut, locking from the outside.
The engine roared to life.
Daniel spun around, aiming his gun at the door.
We felt the violent lurch as the mooring lines were severed. The houseboat was moving, pulling away from the dock, heading straight out into the dark, violent waters of the Sound.
And from a speaker mounted in the corner of the ceiling, a woman’s voice crackled to life.
“Hello, Daniel,” the voice said. It was smooth, aristocratic, and dripping with venom. “You’ve spent twenty years hunting a ghost. Now, you get to drown with one.”
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Eleanor looked at me, a profound sadness in her eyes.
“That’s Laura,” she whispered.
