Chapter 6 - THE BULLET IN THE GLASS
The first shot hit the espresso machine.
The second shattered the front window.
People dropped beneath tables.
I hit the floor so hard my shoulder slammed into a chair leg.
Someone pulled me behind the counter.
Miriam.
“Stay down!”
Outside, tires screamed.
One of the officers drew his weapon and rushed toward the broken window.
The other shouted into his radio.
Dad was crawling toward Ethan.
Daniel had disappeared.
Vanessa had too.
For ten seconds, the café became noise.
Crying.
Commands.
Glass falling.
Then silence.
No third shot.
The SUV was gone.
I pushed myself up.
“Where’s Vanessa?”
Dad looked around.
“Vanessa?”
The rear door to the kitchen swung slowly.
Open.
Ethan ran toward it.
The officer stopped him.
“Stay here.”
“That's my mother!”
Police flooded the block within minutes.
They locked down the café.
An ambulance checked the people cut by flying glass.
No one had been hit by the bullets.
That felt less like luck after detectives found the first round buried in the wall.
It had passed six inches above where Daniel had been standing.
The second had hit the machine directly behind Vanessa.
Two shots.
Two targets.
At 1:26 a.m., a detective named Ramirez sat across from me.
“You believe someone was following you earlier?”
“Yes.”
“Same vehicle?”
“I think so.”
“You have enemies?”
My laugh sounded wrong.
“Apparently.”
Dad sat nearby with Ethan.
He looked broken.
Not financially.
Personally.
His wife was missing.
His supposedly dead brother had vanished after a shooting.
His daughter had just taken control of the family empire.
And somewhere inside all of it was my mother.
Ramirez leaned forward.
“Ms. Bennett, your father says tonight involved a business dispute.”
“That’s one way to describe it.”
“What’s another?”
“Fraud.”
Dad looked over.
I didn’t lower my voice.
“A forged signature was used to secure a forty-two-million-dollar loan.”
Ramirez’s pen stopped.
“Whose signature?”
“My mother’s.”
“Where is she?”
“Cemetery.”
That changed the interview.
Within fifteen minutes, another detective arrived.
Then someone from financial crimes.
Miriam began making calls.
At 2:03 a.m., my phone received a text from Vanessa.
Unknown number.
CLAIRE, DO NOT TRUST DANIEL.
I immediately showed Ramirez.
Another message appeared.
YOUR MOTHER FOUND OUT TOO LATE.
Then:
ASK MIRIAM ABOUT THE BLUE FILE.
Miriam read it over my shoulder.
Her face drained.
“What blue file?”
She didn’t answer.
“Miriam.”
“There was a file.”
Daniel had said Mom didn’t trust her.
Now Vanessa knew about something Miriam had never mentioned.
“What was in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were her attorney.”
“She asked me to store a sealed blue envelope in our old records vault.”
“And?”
“I did.”
“What happened to it?”
Miriam looked toward Dad.
“Three days after Eleanor died, Richard came to my office with a court order giving him access to family corporate records.”
Dad stood.
“I never touched any blue file.”
Miriam ignored him.
“When we inventoried the vault later, it was gone.”
Dad walked toward us.
“You think I stole from my wife’s attorney?”
“You lied about Daniel being dead.”
“Because he threatened everything Eleanor built!”
A voice behind us said:
“No, Richard.”
Daniel stepped through the café entrance accompanied by a detective.
Blood ran down the side of his face from a cut near his temple.
“You told Claire I was dead because Eleanor planned to change her will.”
Dad stared at him.
Daniel held up a small brass key.
“I didn’t run after the shooting.”
He looked at me.
“I went to get this.”
“What does it open?”
“Your mother’s private safe.”
Dad whispered, “That safe was emptied years ago.”
Daniel smiled.
“The one you knew about was.”
My skin prickled.
He placed the key in my hand.
“Eleanor kept another one.”
“Where?”
Daniel looked across the river.
At the Grand Halcyon.
“Room 1108.”
My breath caught.
Mom’s favorite room.
The suite she used when the hotel first opened.
The room Dad had permanently taken out of inventory after her death.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“Whatever Vanessa is afraid of…”
May you like
He closed my fingers around the key.
“…your mother left it there.”
