Chapter 8 - My Dead Wife Called Me
I played the sentence three times.
Sophie is the reason they kept me alive.
Grace stood beside me with one hand over her mouth.
Malcolm looked furious.
“Bell was inside the house last night?”
“No camera picked him up.”
“Then he used the hidden passage.”
I called Bell.
He answered on the second ring.
“Detective Bell.”
“You were in my house at two-eleven this morning.”
Silence.
Then he hung up.
I called again.
Straight to voicemail.
Malcolm immediately locked down the estate.
At 4:30 that afternoon, my phone rang from an unknown number.
I almost ignored it.
Then I answered.
“Hello?”
A woman breathed on the other end.
“Ethan.”
My knees nearly gave out.
I knew that voice.
“Olivia?”
Grace looked up sharply.
“Don’t say my name again,” Olivia whispered. “Not where anyone can hear you.”
“Where are you?”
“Not safe.”
“I found the passage.”
“I know.”
“You’ve been seeing Sophie.”
Her voice broke. “I couldn’t stay away.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
A long pause.
“Because the last time I trusted you, I woke up inside Harbor Ridge.”
I closed my eyes.
“I didn’t know what I signed.”
“You signed it.”
“I was drugged.”
“I know that now.”
“Then why are you still hiding?”
“Because the order was only part of it.”
“What else did I do?”
“You gave Lucas full control of the company accounts for ninety days.”
I froze.
“I would never do that.”
“You did. He used those ninety days to move nearly eighty million dollars.”
Grace whispered, “Oh my God.”
Olivia heard her.
“Who’s with you?”
“Grace.”
“That’s okay.”
“Where is Mason Reed?” I asked.
Olivia stopped breathing for a second.
“You hired Mason?”
“He found you.”
“He found the clinic.”
“What clinic?”
“The one where they kept me after the crash.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“You were held again?”
“For eleven months.”
“By who?”
“Not now.”
“Olivia.”
“Listen to me. Take Sophie out of the house tonight. Don’t use your car. Don’t go to your mother. Don’t go to Lucas.”
“Where do I go?”
“Grace knows.”
I looked at Grace.
Her face changed.
“You know where?” I asked.
Olivia whispered, “She knows more than she told you.”
The call ended.
I slowly lowered the phone.
Grace looked at the floor.
“Ethan—”
“How long have you known Olivia was alive?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Six months.”
I stared at the woman who had helped raise my daughter.
“You lied to me for six months.”
Grace nodded.
“Yes.”
Then she said the last thing I expected.
“Because Olivia asked me to protect Sophie from you.”
Grace sat down after admitting she knew Olivia was alive.
“There’s something else.”
I laughed bitterly. “Of course there is.”
“She didn’t just ask me to watch Sophie.”
“What did she ask?”
“To keep a bag ready.”
Grace opened the hall closet and pulled out a child-sized backpack.
Inside were clothes, cash, a passport copy, and a notarized letter naming Grace as an emergency caretaker.
My signature was on that too.
I felt cold.
“I never signed this.”
Grace shook her head. “This one you did.”
“When?”
“Three years ago. Before your father died.”
I remembered signing a stack of estate-planning papers after Sophie was born.
Grace pointed to the date.
“Olivia said your father slipped this into the package.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone was preparing for Sophie to need an escape plan before Olivia ever disappeared.”
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