Chapter 4 - Before Friday
Grant was arrested.
But he wasn’t charged with everything immediately.
That surprised Claire.
It didn’t surprise me.
Good investigations take time.
Bad prosecutors rush.
I had spent my career telling frightened families that certainty in a courtroom required patience outside one.
Now I was the frightened family.
I hated my own advice.
Detective Hale’s team searched Grant and Claire’s house.
They found financial records.
Multiple phones.
Encrypted drives.
Prescription medication that had not been issued to Claire.
And evidence that the supposed wellness retreat had never existed.
Solstice Haven was fiction.
Grant had created a website.
Stock photographs.
Testimonials.
Even a fake automated email address.
He had prepared the lie before Claire disappeared.
But the most disturbing discovery involved Friday.
Friday was supposed to be the day Claire died.
Not necessarily in the basement.
Grant’s plan appeared more sophisticated.
He had booked a cabin nearly three hours away under Claire’s name.
A rental vehicle was reserved.
A letter had been drafted on Claire’s laptop.
It read like a farewell.
Claire had not written it.
The prosecution theory began forming.
Grant intended to make it appear that his emotionally unstable wife had secretly left the wellness retreat, driven to an isolated cabin and ended her own life.
Except Claire wasn’t emotionally unstable.
And Grant had made mistakes.
Many mistakes.
The biggest was believing that a convincing story mattered more than physical evidence.
The second was underestimating Claire.
The third was underestimating me.
But there was still the mysterious accomplice.
Hale’s team traced the hidden phone.
Then he called me.
“Evelyn, I need you to come downtown.”
I knew from his voice that something had changed.
At the station, Hale placed three photographs on the table.
Grant.
Daniel Pierce.
And a woman I recognized.
I stared at her.
“No.”
Hale said nothing.
The woman was Dr. Rebecca Sloan.
Claire’s department administrator.
Her mentor.
Her friend.
Rebecca had attended Claire’s wedding.
She had sat beside me at Robert’s funeral.
And according to the messages recovered from Grant’s phone, Rebecca had helped manufacture Claire’s false psychiatric history.
I felt physically sick.
“Why?”
“Money.”
“How much?”
“Potentially several million.”
Rebecca had invested through Grant.
Daniel Pierce discovered that some of the fraudulent transfers passed through accounts connected to her.
She wasn’t merely protecting Grant.
She was protecting herself.
And then Hale showed me the final message.
Sent the morning I found Claire.
Her mother is getting suspicious. Deal with Evelyn if necessary.
The reply came from Grant.
Leave Evelyn to me.
For the first time since entering that basement, fear reached me personally.
Grant hadn’t simply known I might interfere.
He had planned for it.
May you like
And Rebecca Sloan was still free.
---
