Chapter 4 - The Escape
Officer Davis ran first.
Marcus followed.
“Stay with Claire!” Davis shouted to Grant.
They hit the stairs at full speed.
Glass covered the kitchen floor.
The back door stood open.
One officer was outside yelling into his radio.
“Suspect fleeing east!”
Marcus looked toward the living room.
“Where’s Julian?”
The officer pointed.
“He shoved Officer Kent into the window.”
Marcus felt his stomach drop.
“He escaped?”
Davis ran outside.
Marcus followed him into the yard.
A black SUV tore through the rear gate.
“Stop!”
The vehicle accelerated.
Davis raised his weapon but didn’t fire.
Too many houses beyond it.
Marcus watched the SUV vanish.
“He planned this.”
Davis grabbed his radio.
“Black Range Rover, plate Henry-Tom-Nine-Seven-Four. Suspect considered dangerous.”
Marcus turned.
“Lily.”
He sprinted back inside.
“Lily!”
No answer.
His heart stopped.
“Lily!”
Officer Grant appeared at the basement door.
“She’s with Claire.”
Marcus exhaled.
Then Claire came upstairs carrying her daughter.
“What happened?”
“Julian got away.”
Claire went pale.
“He’ll come back.”
“No, he won’t,” Marcus said.
“Yes.”
Her certainty frightened him.
“You don’t understand him.”
Marcus looked at Lily.
“Take her somewhere safe.”
Davis came inside.
“That’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Claire looked toward the driveway.
“My phone.”
“What?”
“Julian took it when he locked me downstairs.”
Davis nodded.
“We’ll track it if it’s active.”
“No. He kept it.”
“Why would he keep it?”
Claire’s eyes narrowed.
“Because everyone thinks I have it.”
Marcus understood.
“If he sends messages from your phone—”
“He can make it look like I ran away.”
Davis immediately called for cybercrime support.
Claire hugged Lily.
“My mother got a text from me yesterday.”
Marcus looked up.
“What did it say?”
“That I needed space.”
Davis swore quietly.
“So he’s building a story.”
Claire nodded.
“He already has.”
Marcus looked back toward the basement.
Fake medication.
Fake instability.
A life insurance policy.
A locked room.
Now messages pretending to be Claire.
“He was setting up your death.”
No one answered.
They didn’t need to.
Officer Grant approached.
“There’s another problem.”
“What now?”
She held a tablet showing the security feeds.
“Ten minutes before we entered the house, the outside cameras shut off.”
Davis looked at her.
“Julian?”
“No.”
She pointed to a login record.
“Remote access.”
Marcus frowned.
“From where?”
Grant hesitated.
“A law office downtown.”
Claire’s expression changed.
“What office?”
Grant read the name.
“Mercer, Hale & Whitman.”
Julian’s law firm.
Marcus laughed once.
“So his partners knew.”
“Maybe,” Davis said. “Maybe not.”
Claire suddenly looked toward the broken kitchen window.
“Where’s Officer Kent?”
“Ambulance is taking him in.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“I mean before Julian escaped.”
Davis frowned.
“He was guarding the front hall.”
Claire’s eyes widened.
“Julian didn’t have a key to the handcuffs.”
Davis went still.
Marcus understood.
Someone had removed them.
Davis turned toward his officers.
“Who uncuffed Mercer?”
Nobody answered.
Then the front door opened.
A tall man in an expensive navy suit walked inside.
Marcus recognized him immediately.
Julian’s senior law partner.
David Hale.
He raised both hands.
“I’m not here to cause trouble.”
Claire’s face turned cold.
“Why are you here?”
Hale looked directly at her.
“Because Julian called me.”
Marcus stepped forward.
“From where?”
“I don’t know.”
Hale reached into his coat slowly.
Davis’s hand moved toward his weapon.
“Careful.”
Hale pulled out an envelope.
“He told me to deliver this to Claire.”
Claire stared at it.
“What is it?”
“He said if you opened the basement door, I should give you this.”
Marcus snatched the envelope.
Inside was a single photograph.
Lily sleeping in her school classroom.
Taken through the window.
On the back, Julian had written:
May you like
You opened my door.
Now I open yours.
