Chapter 7 - THE BRIDE INSIDE THE ABANDONED HOSPITAL
Claire had been missing for nearly forty hours when investigators reached Riverside Recovery Center.
The building stood behind rusted gates on the outskirts of Joliet.
Its windows were dark.
Its gardens had grown wild.
The place where Michael once learned how to navigate life in a wheelchair now looked like a monument to abandonment.
Michael accompanied investigators to a nearby command location but did not interfere with their work.
For years, he would have sent armed men to settle a problem like this.
Now he understood that rushing toward violence could cost him the person he was trying to save.
The wait was unbearable.
Then Nora's phone rang.
She listened.
Her eyes filled.
“They found her.”
Michael stopped breathing.
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
For the first time since the wedding, he allowed himself to believe Claire might come home.
She was taken to a hospital for examination.
When Michael finally saw her, she was sitting on a bed with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
Her wedding dress was gone.
There were bruises around one wrist.
Her face was pale.
But she was alive.
“Claire.”
She looked up.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then tears filled her eyes.
“Michael.”
He moved toward her.
Stopped.
“Can I come closer?”
She nodded.
He reached the bed and took her hand when she offered it.
“I thought you left me.”
“I know.”
“I read the letter.”
“I know.”
His voice broke.
“Was any of it true?”
Claire shook her head.
“No.”
Michael closed his eyes.
She explained that Victor entered her bridal suite shortly before the ceremony.
He showed her photographs of Grace and Lily outside their neighborhood grocery store.
Then he threatened to have them harmed unless she cooperated.
She refused at first.
Victor grabbed her phone.
He showed her the letter Richard had prepared.
Three sentences designed to wound Michael as deeply as possible.
“They wanted you to believe I was ashamed of your wheelchair.”
Michael looked away.
“Why?”
“Because Richard knew it was the one betrayal you might believe without questioning.”
His throat tightened.
Claire continued.
“They forced me into the car. Victor told me that if you began searching too quickly, Lily would be the first person they hurt.”
She had been kept inside an unused treatment room at Riverside.
Victor demanded that she surrender the financial evidence she had collected and sign a statement discrediting the foundation investigation.
She refused.
Before she could be moved again, officers located her.
Michael stared at the bruises on her wrist.
“I should have protected you.”
Claire squeezed his hand.
“You should have listened when I said something was wrong with the foundation.”
He lowered his eyes.
She wasn't trying to hurt him.
She was telling the truth.
“And I should have told you everything I found,” she added. “I was afraid you would confront Victor before I had enough evidence.”
They had both tried to protect each other by withholding information.
It had nearly destroyed them.
Then Claire looked toward the door.
“Michael, there's something else.”
“What?”
“Richard isn't finished.”
She reached for the phone investigators had returned to her.
Before Victor took it, she had received a message from an anonymous number.
It contained a copy of a legal petition.
Richard was seeking emergency control of the Bennett Foundation.
His filing claimed that Michael's injury, combined with the public humiliation at his wedding, had left him incapable of making sound decisions.
Michael stared at the document.
May you like
Richard wasn't merely trying to steal his money.
He was using Michael's disability to argue that the man who had survived the ambush no longer deserved control of his own life.
