Chapter 4 - The Bloodstained Coat
“Lock yourself in the bedroom! Now!” I roared into the phone, sprinting toward my car.
The tires of my SUV tore up the gravel driveway as I sped toward Manhattan. The drive usually took forty minutes. I made it in twenty-two.
My mind was a dark, violent storm. A man in Julian’s coat. The Moretti daughter orchestrating my ruin. My granddaughter trapped in a penthouse that was supposed to be a fortress.
When I reached the building, my two guards were unconscious in the lobby. I drew my weapon, a customized Kimber 1911, and took the service elevator to the penthouse.
The front door was splintered open.
I moved silently through the foyer, my gun raised. The apartment was trashed. Furniture overturned, lamps shattered.
“Hannah!” I barked.
“Grant!”
Her voice came from the master bathroom. I kicked the door open. Hannah was huddled in the empty marble bathtub, clutching Lily to her chest. Both of them were terrified, but alive.
“Where is he?” I demanded, scanning the room.
“He left,” Hannah sobbed. “He didn’t try to hurt us. He just tore the place apart looking for something. When he couldn't find it, he dropped this and climbed out the fire escape.”
She pointed a trembling finger toward the center of the living room floor.
I walked over. Lying on my Persian rug was a heavy, olive-green military coat. It was covered in dark, dried stains. Blood.
It was Julian’s coat. The exact coat he was wearing the night the police found his body. The police had logged it into evidence. How the hell did someone get it out?
I knelt down and checked the pockets. My fingers brushed against a small, hard object wrapped in wax paper.
I pulled it out. It was a flash drive.
I grabbed my laptop from the study, plugged the drive in, and opened the only file on it. It was a video recording.
The grainy footage showed a dingy motel room. Four years ago.
Julian was sitting on the edge of a bed, looking pale and sick. And standing over him, handing him a glass of water, was a woman.
She turned her face toward the hidden camera.
It was Celeste.
“Drink this, Julian,” Celeste’s voice echoed from the laptop speakers. “It will make the pain stop. I promise.”
I watched in horror as my son drank the water, laid back, and slowly closed his eyes forever.
The police said it was an accidental overdose. It wasn’t. It was murder. Celeste had murdered my son to pave the way to me.
The screen flickered, and the video ended.
I felt a tear hot against my cheek. I hadn’t cried in twenty years.
Hannah walked up behind me, carrying Lily. She saw the frozen frame of Celeste’s face on the screen.
“Oh my god,” Hannah whispered.
“She killed him,” I said, my voice vibrating with a rage so profound it felt like a physical weight. “She killed Julian. And then she came for me.”
Lily squirmed in Hannah’s arms. “Mama, look.”
Lily was holding a small, crumpled piece of paper she had found on the floor near the coat. I took it from her tiny hands.
It was a receipt from a private airfield in New Jersey. Scheduled departure: 3:00 AM tonight. Destination: Costa Rica.
It was currently 1:15 AM.
“She’s running,” Hannah said.
“No,” I replied, staring at the receipt. “She wants me to think she’s running. She left this coat. She left the drive. She left the receipt. She’s luring me there.”
I looked at Hannah. “Pack a bag. You’re coming with me.”
“To an airfield? Grant, it’s a trap!”
“I know,” I said, loading a fresh magazine into my Kimber. “But she doesn’t know that I know the one secret she left behind.”
“What secret?”
May you like
I reached into the inside pocket of Julian’s coat and pulled out a delicate, silver rosary.
“This,” I said.
