Chapter 7 - THE VOICE ON THE LINE
The temperature in the study seemed to drop twenty degrees.
Eleanor gripped the phone so tightly her knuckles turned white.
"Thomas," she hissed, her voice trembling with a mixture of rage and fear. "If you touch a hair on my grandson's head, I will personally see to it that you spend the rest of your natural life rotting in a maximum-security prison."
Harrison let out a low, mocking chuckle on the other end of the line.
"Prison, Eleanor? Please. I'm a corporate lawyer. I know how to structure an exit strategy better than anyone in this state," Harrison replied smoothly. "Besides, young Andrew here was just explaining how easy it was to forge his mother's signature. Kids say the darndest things under pressure." *
In the background of the call, I heard a muffled sob.
"Mom!" Andrew’s voice cried out, breaking through the static. "Mom, help me! He's got a gun—"
The sound of a sharp slap echoed through the speaker, followed by Andrew choking off into silence.
"Put him on the phone, Thomas!" I screamed, grabbing the receiver from Eleanor's hand. "Leave him alone! He's just a kid—he doesn't know anything!"
"He knows enough, Caroline," Harrison said, his tone turning ice-cold. "He knows where the original corporate charter is hidden. And more importantly, he knows that you have it." *
I froze.
The micro-photograph inside the silver locket.
Harrison knew we had discovered the truth about the maternal-line majority control. Without that charter, their fraudulent empire still stood a chance in court; with it, they were finished.
"Here's my proposal," Harrison continued calmly, as if discussing a routine business merger. "You bring the original micro-photograph—or whatever proof you have tucked in that locket—to the coordinates on that silver keychain you dropped at the hotel. You know the place. The lake house." *
"And if I refuse?" I demanded.
"Then Andrew's startup career comes to a very abrupt, very messy end," Harrison said. "You have forty-five minutes, Caroline. Come alone. No police. No Eleanor. If I see flashing lights, your son doesn't make it to sunrise." *
Click.
The line went dead.
I stood there in the quiet study, the dial tone buzzing in my ear like an angry hornet.
"We're calling the state police," Eleanor said, reaching for her phone. "We give them the lake house coordinates and let a SWAT team raid the place."
"Did you hear him, Eleanor?" I said, my voice shaking as I set the phone down. "He said forty-five minutes. A SWAT team takes hours to mobilize across county lines. If we involve the police before we secure Andrew, Harrison will panic, and my son pays the price."
"You can't go down there alone, Caroline," Eleanor argued, her eyes fierce. "Harrison is armed and desperate. He'll kill you the second you hand over the evidence."
"I'm not going to hand over the evidence," I said, a cold, hard resolve settling into my chest. "I'm going to finish what your son and his lawyer started thirty years ago."
I reached down and picked up the heavy brass key I had used to open Andrew's strongbox, along with the silver keychain I found at the hotel.
"What are you planning to do?" Eleanor asked, watching me warily.
"Remember what you said earlier, Eleanor?" I turned toward the door. "You let David hang himself with his own rope. Tonight, I'm tying the knot."
I ran out to my car, started the engine, and pulled out of the gated community before Eleanor could argue another word.
The drive to the secluded lake house took thirty-five minutes through winding, fog-drenched country roads. As I turned off the main highway onto the unpaved dirt track leading toward the water, I switched off my headlights, letting my eyes adjust to the pale glow of the half-moon filtering through the dense pine trees.
Ahead of me, sitting on the edge of the dark lake water, was the weathered wooden cabin from the video.
A single yellow light burned inside the front window.
I parked my car fifty yards away in the thick brush, stepped out into the damp night air, and reached into my coat pocket.
Inside, resting against my fingers, wasn't just the locket.
May you like
It was the heavy, loaded hunting rifle David had kept in the back of his study closet for emergencies—the one I had grabbed on my way out of the house.
It was time to close the deal.
