Chapter 6 - A Voice That Shouldn’t Exist
Grant disappeared before Adrian's men reached the third floor.
He knew Bennett Studio too well.
There was a rear fire stair Claire rarely used.
By the time they reached the alley, only rain remained.
Claire did not chase him.
She stood beneath the awning with the gray notebook pressed against her chest while Adrian gave orders.
His men spread through the surrounding blocks.
Claire barely heard them.
One sentence had lodged inside her mind.
Ask Adrian why Michael Cross was driving my car.
When they returned upstairs, Claire closed her office door.
Adrian stayed standing.
She did too.
“Explain.”
“Grant was manipulating you.”
“That doesn't mean he lied.”
“No.”
Claire waited.
Adrian's silence became an answer of its own.
“You knew Michael was in Grant's car?”
“Not at first.”
“When did you find out?”
“Six months ago.”
Her laugh was bitter.
“Another detail you forgot to mention?”
“I didn't know why.”
“Try me.”
Adrian looked exhausted for the first time since she'd met him.
“Michael called me the night he died.”
Claire's anger softened slightly.
“What did he say?”
“He asked me to meet him.”
“Where?”
“Warehouse 17.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Adrian looked away.
“We argued.”
“About your father?”
“Yes.”
Michael had apparently learned the full extent of their father's old cover-up and demanded Adrian turn over company records to investigators.
Adrian refused.
Not because he approved of what his father had done, but because thousands of employees and several legitimate businesses were tied into the same corporate structure.
“You chose the company,” Claire said.
“I thought I was protecting people.”
“Michael thought you were protecting your father.”
“Yes.”
“What happened after the call?”
“Michael left me a voicemail twenty minutes later. Said he had Grant's car and evidence. He was bringing both to me.”
Claire understood.
“That's why he was driving it.”
“Probably.”
“Then Grant intercepted him.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me this?”
“Because until today I didn't know whether Michael had stolen the car, borrowed it, or been working with Grant.”
Claire thought of the recording.
Michael admitting he helped Grant.
Adrian had been searching for answers too.
It did not erase his secrecy.
But it changed the shape of it.
Claire sat.
“What did the voicemail say?”
Adrian hesitated.
Then took out his phone.
He played an old recording.
Michael's voice filled the room.
“Adrian, listen to me. I know you're angry. I don't care. Bennett's bigger than we thought. He has records on everyone. Dad, city officials, judges, cops. I took his car because there's something hidden in it. Meet me at W17. And Adrian…”
Static.
Then:
“If something happens, find Claire Bennett. She has the map and doesn't know it.”
The recording ended.
Claire stared at the phone.
A voice from a dead man.
Talking about her.
“That's why you investigated me.”
“Yes.”
“Michael told you to find me.”
“Yes.”
“Why wait a year?”
“Because the accident happened sixteen minutes after that message.”
Adrian's voice lowered.
“When police told me Grant Bennett had died in the same car, I assumed Michael had somehow switched vehicles before the crash.”
“But there was only one body.”
“Yes.”
“You knew it wasn't Grant?”
“I suspected.”
“Why didn't anyone identify Michael?”
Adrian's expression hardened.
“The dental records had been changed.”
Claire felt sick.
“By who?”
“We haven't proved it.”
“Grant?”
“Or someone helping him.”
She looked at the gray notebook.
“Someone inside your organization.”
“That's what Michael said.”
Claire turned to the Halston Room entry.
The master account is where he proposed.
“What does that mean?”
Adrian came beside her.
“Could be a physical hiding place.”
“Grant proposed at table twelve.”
“You remember the exact table?”
Claire gave him a look.
“I married the man.”
“Fair point.”
She flipped through the notebook.
Beneath Halston was a sketch of the restaurant floor plan.
Claire had drawn it years earlier for fun while Grant went to the restroom during dinner.
She'd been an architecture student then.
Table twelve was circled.
There was another mark.
A tiny X beneath the built-in banquette.
“I drew this.”
“You marked the X?”
“No.”
Adrian leaned closer.
The ink was different.
Michael.
“Maybe he hid something beneath the seat.”
Claire's phone vibrated.
A message from Grant.
YOU SHOULD HAVE COME ALONE.
She stared.
Another.
CROSS WILL NEVER TELL YOU THE WHOLE TRUTH.
Claire typed for the first time.
THEN YOU TELL ME.
The reply came immediately.
MEET ME.
WHERE?
Grant sent an address.
Adrian saw it.
“No.”
“You don't control me.”
“Correct. I'm still saying no.”
“Grant wants to talk.”
“Grant wants the notebook.”
“Then we use it.”
Adrian's eyes narrowed.
“As bait?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You said you needed to find him.”
“Not by handing him my best leverage and putting you in front of him.”
Claire folded her arms.
“Your best leverage?”
He realized his mistake.
“The notebook.”
“That's not what it sounded like.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“I am trying to keep you alive.”
“So you keep saying.”
“Because you keep making it difficult.”
She almost smiled despite herself.
Then the smile vanished.
“If I don't go, Grant disappears again.”
“We can track him another way.”
“You've had three months.”
The words hit.
Adrian had no reply.
Claire continued.
“He knows you think like him.”
“I don't.”
“You both try to control every variable.”
Adrian's eyes darkened.
“And you think he doesn't know you?”
“He knows the woman I used to be.”
That stopped him.
Claire looked down at the notebook.
“That may be the only advantage we have.”
The meeting address was an abandoned church on the South Side.
Grant specified midnight.
No police.
No Adrian.
Of course Adrian came anyway.
But Claire entered alone.
She wore a small transmitter beneath her dress.
Adrian hated the plan.
Claire hated that she cared whether he hated it.
The church had been closed for years.
Dust covered pews.
Streetlight entered through stained glass.
Grant sat in the front row.
“Always dramatic,” Claire said.
He turned.
“You came.”
“You knew I would.”
He smiled.
“That curiosity.”
“You mentioned that.”
“You used to love when I said it.”
“I used to love a lot of things that weren't good for me.”
Grant's smile tightened.
Claire remained several feet away.
“Why did you fake your death?”
“Because Cross would have killed me.”
Adrian listened from a van two blocks away.
Claire asked, “Did you kill Michael?”
“No.”
“Did you arrange the crash?”
Grant paused.
“No.”
Too long.
Claire noticed.
“So what happened?”
“Michael stole evidence from me.”
“Your car.”
“Yes.”
“I followed him.”
“And?”
“He lost control.”
Claire's eyes narrowed.
“That isn't what the police report says.”
“Police reports can be wrong.”
“You should know.”
Grant's jaw tightened.
Claire continued.
“You altered dental records.”
“I protected myself.”
“You let them bury Michael as you.”
“I didn't know whose body it was until later.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to remember I loved you.”
For a moment the old ache returned.
Then Claire remembered the fake accounts.
“My company.”
Grant blinked.
“You used my company's name to move money.”
“To protect you.”
“How exactly does laundering millions through fake versions of my firm protect me?”
“You wouldn't understand.”
There it was.
The phrase.
Claire almost laughed.
Grant stood.
“You think Adrian Cross is different?”
“Yes.”
The answer surprised both of them.
Grant's expression darkened.
Claire clarified.
“I don't think he's good. I think he tells me when he's dangerous.”
Grant stared.
“He killed people.”
“So did your choices.”
His face changed.
Claire took one more step.
“Did you kill Michael?”
“No.”
“Did you cause his death?”
Silence.
“Grant.”
His eyes hardened.
“He made a choice.”
Claire understood.
“That means yes.”
“He stole from me!”
His voice echoed.
For the first time, Grant lost control.
“He was going to destroy everything.”
“So you destroyed him first.”
Grant breathed heavily.
Then recovered.
“Give me the notebook.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“No.”
He approached.
Claire didn't move.
“You still think you can talk to me like I'm the woman who waited for you to come home.”
“You are my wife.”
“You died.”
Grant stopped.
“You made me a widow.”
She pulled off her wedding ring.
She had kept wearing it on a chain beneath her clothes.
Now she held it between them.
“The woman you married spent a year burying you.”
Claire let the ring fall to the dusty church floor.
“She isn't here anymore.”
Grant's face hardened.
A door opened behind him.
Another man entered.
And Claire recognized him from the photographs in the hidden room.
A senior executive from Cross Development.
Adrian's trusted chief financial officer.
Thomas Vale.
The man Michael had warned them about.
Grant smiled.
“I told you someone inside Cross was mine.”
May you like
Claire's transmitter suddenly went dead.
And two blocks away, Adrian heard nothing but static.
