Chapter 10 - Briar House
Briar House sat behind a stone wall in the middle of thirty wooded acres.
Rain began before sunset.
By six, fog covered the lower road.
Police established positions a mile away.
Grant had demanded no police.
Naturally, police came.
He had demanded the original will.
Samuel gave us a decoy.
The real document stayed in a courthouse vault.
He had demanded Wyatt.
Wyatt came wearing a concealed recording device beneath his shirt.
He had demanded me.
Detective Beckett argued for forty minutes.
He lost.
I wore a wire beneath my coat and a small panic transmitter inside my sleeve.
My face still hurt.
My left eye watered in the cold.
I had never felt less like a victim.
The front door opened before we knocked.
Grant stood inside.
He looked nothing like a fugitive.
Tailored black sweater.
Clean jeans.
Expensive watch.
Calm smile.
“Sadie.”
His gaze moved to Wyatt.
“Cousin.”
Wyatt said nothing.
Grant stepped aside.
“Come in.”
The entrance hall smelled of dust and old wood.
No lights except lamps.
No visible weapons.
That meant nothing.
“Jonah.”
I said.
“Alive.”
“Show me.”
Grant nodded toward a hallway.
We followed him into a former therapy room.
Jonah sat tied to a chair.
His lip was split.
One eye swollen.
He saw me.
“Don’t give him anything.”
Grant sighed.
“You see?”
“This is why old men become exhausting.”
Wyatt moved toward Jonah.
Grant lifted a handgun.
“Stop.”
Wyatt froze.
There it was.
The mask gone.
Grant pointed at my bag.
“The will.”
I set the folder on a table.
“Let Jonah go.”
“After I verify it.”
He opened the folder.
Read.
His expression did not change.
Then he smiled.
“Samuel made a decent copy.”
My heart skipped.
He knew.
“Where is the original?”
“Safe.”
“Wrong answer.”
He aimed at Jonah.
I raised both hands.
“You kill him and you lose the only leverage you have.”
“I still have Wyatt.”
Wyatt laughed.
Grant glanced at him.
“You always were arrogant.”
“Learned from you.”
Grant’s jaw tightened.
Family wounds.
Older than me.
Useful.
I said.
“Why did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Help my father steal from Granddad.”
Grant smiled.
“Because Theodore made sentimental decisions with valuable assets.”
“He chose you because you were obedient.”
“No.”
Jonah said.
Grant turned.
“Theodore chose her because she was decent.”
Grant’s face hardened.
“Decency is what poor people call themselves when they have no leverage.”
Wyatt stared at him.
“You started stealing from my dad.”
Grant looked back.
“Your father wasted money.”
“He built the company.”
“I made it scalable.”
“You hid loans.”
“I created growth.”
“You nearly bankrupted it.”
“I would have owned it if he hadn’t died early.”
There it was.
Not grief.
Resentment.
Wyatt’s father had left the company to Wyatt instead of Grant.
Grant lost one inheritance.
Then Theodore removed him from another.
He had spent nine years trying to steal both back.
I asked.
“Did you order Dad to attack me?”
Grant laughed.
“No.”
“Robert improvises badly.”
“Denise was supposed to use the fake cheating evidence.”
“Then a staged break-in.”
“Then guardianship if necessary.”
“The brick was stupid.”
My wire captured every word.
“Did Mom know?”
“Denise knew everything except how little control she actually had.”
“Melanie?”
“A useful distraction.”
My stomach turned.
“My father attacked me because of your plan.”
“Your father attacked you because he is your father.”
Grant’s answer was almost honest.
“That’s what makes people like Robert useful.”
“They already have the violence inside them.”
“You just give them a reason.”
Wyatt stepped forward.
“You hit my truck?”
Grant smiled.
“I outsourced.”
Beckett now had a confession to conspiracy and attempted assault.
We needed Jonah free.
I moved closer to the table.
Grant’s gun followed me.
“Where is the original will?”
“Courthouse vault.”
His smile disappeared.
“You came here without it?”
“Yes.”
He stared at me.
“Then why are you here?”
“To hear you say everything.”
For the first time, Grant looked toward my coat.
He understood.
“Wire.”
He lunged.
Wyatt moved at the same time.
Grant fired.
The bullet struck the wall.
Wyatt slammed into him.
Both men crashed over the table.
I ran toward Jonah.
A second man emerged from the hallway.
Graham Voss had claimed Grant was alone.
He was wrong.
The man grabbed me from behind.
Pain exploded across my healing face.
I drove my heel backward.
He cursed.
Jonah kicked the chair legs into him.
We both fell.
Outside, Beckett shouted.
Police breached the front door.
Grant broke free from Wyatt and ran.
He disappeared through a side hallway.
The second man surrendered when three officers aimed rifles at him.
I cut Jonah loose.
“Can you walk?”
“I can complain while walking.”
“Good enough.”
Wyatt joined us, breathing hard.
Blood ran from his knuckles.
“Grant went downstairs.”
Beckett arrived.
“Basement team is moving.”
Then the entire building went dark.
Emergency lights flashed red.
A mechanical sound came from beneath us.
Wyatt looked toward the floor.
“What is that?”
Jonah went pale.
“The old service tunnel.”
“What tunnel?”
“This place used to connect to the quarry road.”
Beckett swore.
Grant had an escape route.
Police rushed toward the basement.
I looked through the rain-streaked window.
Headlights appeared beyond the back trees.
A vehicle raced away.
Grant had escaped again.
But this time he left something behind.
In the basement, police found a locked office.
Inside were nine years of forged documents.
Loan records.
Audio recordings.
Photographs.
And a wall covered with surveillance images of me.
My apartment.
My office.
The grocery store.
My wedding venue.
Wyatt’s house.
At the center was one photograph taken from across my parents’ lawn.
It showed my father holding the brick before Wyatt and I had even arrived.
The attack had not been spontaneous.
Someone had photographed Dad preparing for it.
May you like
And in the edge of the frame, my mother was handing him the brick.
