Chapter 6 - THE WEST GATE ROAD
The hospital released me that afternoon into Martin’s care.
Leah insisted I stay at a hotel.
I agreed, provided Grace came somewhere safe and the police knew where to reach all of us.
She resisted.
“I’m an employee.
I don’t need a suite.”
“You witnessed what happened.”
“That doesn’t make me helpless.”
“No,” I said.
“It makes you someone I don’t want left alone in that house.”
She accepted a room on a different floor.
Daniel’s attorney contacted Leah that evening.
He wanted a meeting.
The police had released him while they examined the evidence.
His attorney made clear that he was cooperating and that the meeting would be recorded.
Daniel arrived looking smaller than he had in my foyer.
“I worked for Calder Holdings,” he said.
The buyer.
“What did you bring through the gate?”
“A device to interfere with the landing camera.”
Martin leaned forward.
“You installed it?”
“I handed it to Elise.
She said you knew.”
“Did you believe her?” I asked.
“I wanted to.
They were paying me twelve thousand dollars.”
“Who was?”
“Mercer.”
Daniel put a payment receipt on the table.
The sender was a consulting company I didn’t recognize.
Leah wrote the name down.
“Who sent me the warning?”
“Me.”
“Why did the first message say ‘Don’t let Elise marry him’?”
“My sister wrote it.
I copied it.
She thought I would send it to someone in your household.
I panicked and sent it straight to you.”
His sister, Nora, worked in Calder’s records department.
“She found something in the acquisition files,” Daniel said.
“She asked me to warn you.
I thought she was overreacting.”
“What changed?”
“Elise called after I left the gate.
She said there had to be no question about you being unable to return.”
Daniel stared at his hands.
“I realized I had helped with more than a camera failure.”
He had recorded their next conversation.
Then he sent the warning and drove back.
I wanted to hate him without complication.
He made that difficult.
“Where’s your sister?” Leah asked.
Daniel checked his phone.
“She was supposed to call at six.”
It was almost eight.
Martin offered to contact the police.
Before he could, Daniel’s phone vibrated.
He read the message aloud.
I DIDN’T LEAVE WITH THEM.
May you like
Attached was a photograph of a steel storage cabinet.
Its label carried my father’s name.
