Chapter 4 - THE PLACE GRACE RAN TO
The warning contained a mistake.
A tiny one.
Behind Grace was a blue sign with three visible letters.
M-E-R.
Marcus ran image searches across private medical networks.
Eight hours later, we had a location.
Mercy Harbor Women's Clinic.
Maine.
I was on my jet within twenty minutes.
Then I remembered her letter.
Don't look for me.
For the first time in my life, having the power to reach someone didn't mean I had the right.
I stayed on the plane after we landed.
Marcus went inside alone.
He returned twenty-three minutes later.
“She isn't there.”
“Was she?”
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“When?”
“Three days.”
“Why?”
“Recovery appointment.”
“From the miscarriage?”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
Marcus handed me a sealed note.
The nurse had been instructed to give it to me if I came.
Grace's handwriting.
Richard,
If you ignored my request and found this place, then at least do one thing correctly.
Do not follow me farther.
I left because staying beside you had become more painful than leaving everything behind.
But there's another reason.
Someone knew about the pregnancy before you did.
Someone entered our bedroom while I was asleep.
Someone replaced my vitamins.
I discovered it after the miscarriage.
I don't know who I can trust.
Especially inside your company.
I stopped breathing.
The next paragraph was worse.
I didn't leave to punish you.
I left because the person who killed our baby may believe I'm still carrying something they need to destroy.
I reread that sentence.
Still carrying something.
What?
Marcus saw my face.
“What does it say?”
I handed him the letter.
He read silently.
Then looked at me.
“Something they need to destroy.”
“What?”
“I don't know.”
A nurse knocked on the aircraft door before we departed.
“Mr. Hayes?”
“Yes?”
“Mrs. Hayes left another item.”
She gave me a flash drive.
Back in New York, Marcus isolated it on a secure computer.
There were six folders.
Corporate payments.
Private emails.
Hotel invoices.
Vanessa's apartment.
Everything.
Grace had been investigating my affair.
But she had discovered something else along the way.
Hayes Holdings had paid nearly eighty million dollars to shell companies over five years.
I stared at the figures.
“I never authorized these.”
Marcus's face darkened.
“Someone did.”
Then we found the names.
Several companies connected to hotels I owned.
One connected to a charitable foundation Grace chaired.
Another connected to my brother, Jonathan.
And one company registered to Vanessa Cole's mother.
My stomach tightened.
Grace hadn't merely discovered my affair.
She had stumbled into corporate theft.
At the bottom of the drive was an audio recording.
Two voices.
Vanessa.
And someone else.
A man.
Vanessa said:
“If Grace learns what the foundation account is actually funding, we're finished.”
The man replied:
“Then make sure she never gets the chance to talk.”
I knew that voice.
I had heard it since childhood.
May you like
My younger brother.
Jonathan.
