Chapter 5 - MATTHEW CARTER’S FATHER
No one in the van spoke.
Sheriff Price lowered the loudspeaker.
Rain beat against the windshield.
Emily looked at Matthew.
“Your father.”
Matthew’s face had become very still.
Pike leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.
Like he had been waiting for this.
Emily felt something inside her harden.
“Tell me now.”
Matthew looked at the roadblock.
“We don’t have time.”
“Make time.”
“Emily.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
She hated that.
She tried again.
“You knew my name before I got in your car.”
“You knew my father.”
“You knew Diane was selling the company.”
“And this man thinks I should be scared of who your father was.”
Matthew looked at her.
“My father’s name was Victor Carter.”
Pike laughed softly.
Emily did not know the name.
Matthew continued.
“He founded Carter Meridian.”
“The shipping company?”
“Started as shipping.”
She had seen the Carter Meridian logo on container yards, airports, disaster relief trucks, and financial magazines.
Victor Carter had died years ago.
Her father had once called him a parasite at dinner.
Emily remembered because Diane had kicked him under the table.
Arthur Hale had laughed and said he meant it.
Emily stared at Matthew.
“My father hated yours.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Matthew looked at Pike.
Pike said, “Because Victor Carter tried to take Hale Systems in 2008.”
Matthew’s eyes narrowed.
“That’s not all.”
“No.”
Emily waited.
Outside, Sheriff Price called again.
“Step out of the vehicle with your hands visible.”
Matthew ignored him.
“My father financed Graham Ambrose,” he said.
Emily stopped breathing.
“What?”
“Ambrose built his first hotel portfolio with Carter Meridian credit.”
Pike added, “And his first private club.”
Matthew’s voice sharpened.
“I didn’t know what happened there.”
Pike looked at him.
“Your father did.”
Emily’s stomach twisted.
Matthew’s eyes flashed.
“My father is dead.”
“So is Arthur Hale.”
“Enough,” Emily said.
Both men stopped.
She looked at Matthew.
“Did you rescue me because of your father?”
“No.”
“Did you know Ambrose would be at the mansion?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know Diane was trying to use me?”
“No.”
“Did you know I owned part of Hale Systems?”
“Twenty minutes before I arrived.”
“Why were you buying it?”
Matthew hesitated.
There it was.
A small pause.
Not fear.
Calculation.
Emily felt it like a slap.
“Why?”
“Because Hale Systems owns a network I need.”
“What network?”
“Regional cold storage, rail access, and two customs licenses.”
“So you wanted my company.”
“I wanted an asset.”
The bluntness hurt more than a polished answer would have.
Emily laughed once.
“Of course.”
“Emily—”
“No, it’s fine.”
“It isn’t.”
“You saw a bleeding girl in the road who also happened to own something you wanted.”
“I opened the door before I knew you were Emily Hale.”
She looked at him sharply.
“You said you knew who I was.”
“I knew after you got close to the window.”
“How?”
“Your face.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It’s true.”
Outside, the sheriff’s patience ended.
A deputy slammed a fist on the driver’s window.
“Out!”
Marcus whispered, “They have body cameras.”
Matthew nodded.
“Good.”
He reached for the side door.
Emily grabbed his sleeve.
He stopped.
She let go immediately.
“If you step out, what happens?”
“They arrest me for obstruction.”
“And me?”
“They execute the psychiatric hold.”
Pike said, “And I disappear.”
Matthew looked at Emily.
“You need to decide what matters most in the next two minutes.”
She stared at him.
“That sounds like advice from somebody who has never had every option be terrible.”
His expression softened.
“You’d be surprised.”
Emily looked at the brass key.
Locker 318.
Her father’s initials.
Her mother’s voice on the phone.
Diane’s lie already spreading online.
Then she looked toward Sheriff Price.
An idea formed.
It was stupid.
Dangerous.
And entirely hers.
“Give me your phone.”
Matthew handed it over without asking.
She opened the camera.
“What are you doing?” Marcus asked.
“Making the next two minutes public.”
She switched to livestream.
Matthew looked at her.
“You have no audience.”
“I have my father’s company account password.”
“You still have access?”
“I’m about to find out.”
Her fingers shook as she typed.
The Hale Systems corporate account opened.
Diane had forgotten to change one password.
Emily almost smiled.
“Bad mistake,” she whispered.
She hit LIVE.
The viewer count started at twelve.
Then forty-seven.
Then three hundred.
Employees, clients, people who followed the brand.
Emily turned the camera on herself.
She saw her face for the first time since the mansion.
Bruised cheek.
Wet hair.
Split lip.
Torn silver dress.
She looked frighteningly unlike the unstable heiress from Diane’s funeral photograph.
Or maybe exactly like her.
She spoke anyway.
“My name is Emily Hale.”
The van went silent around her.
“I am not missing.”
The viewer count climbed.
“I am not having a psychiatric episode.”
Her voice shook.
She let it.
“Tonight, my stepmother, Diane Hale, locked me inside a bedroom with Graham Ambrose after telling me I was going to help save our company by keeping him happy.”
Matthew’s eyes sharpened.
Pike stared at her.
Outside, the deputy at the window froze.
Emily turned the camera toward the roadblock.
“This is Sheriff Nolan Price.”
Price’s face changed.
“He says he has a court order to take me for psychiatric evaluation.”
The viewer count hit nine thousand.
Emily aimed the camera at herself again.
“I am asking, on camera, to be taken to a state police facility or a hospital outside this county where I can speak to an independent investigator.”
Price shouted something.
She kept going.
“I am also stating that I fear for my safety if Sheriff Price takes custody of me.”
Someone outside yelled, “Kill the signal!”
The livestream froze.
The screen went black.
Marcus swore.
“Cell jammer.”
But it had been live for fifty-three seconds.
Long enough.
Sirens sounded in the distance.
Not from behind them.
From the highway ahead.
Price turned.
His deputies looked at one another.
Matthew’s phone began vibrating with incoming calls.
Emily exhaled.
“Maybe that worked.”
Then Pike leaned toward her.
“No.”
She looked at him.
He was staring at Sheriff Price.
Price was no longer looking angry.
He looked relieved.
Pike whispered, “You just told everyone you’re alive.”
Emily frowned.
“So?”
Pike’s eyes dropped to the brass key in her hand.
“So whoever called you in your mother’s voice now knows you have 318.”
On Matthew’s phone, a new message appeared despite the jammer.
No sender.
Just a photograph.
May you like
It showed Union Station Locker 318.
The locker door was already open.
