Chapter 6 - The Door Rosa LockedClaire tried Rosa’s number again. No answer.
I called the police while Leah contacted the security company that monitored Claire’s house. Torres met us there ten minutes later.
We found the front door shut and the kitchen lights on. Through the window, I could see Emma sitting beside Rosa at the table. Emma waved when she saw her mother.
Claire nearly fell trying to reach the door.
Rosa opened it from inside. She had locked every window and drawn the curtains on the back rooms. Emma was unharmed.
“A man called from outside,” Rosa said. “He told me Jonathan wanted me to bring Emma to his car. When I wouldn’t, he called again from my own number.”
Her phone was missing from the porch, where she had left it while bringing in groceries. A neighbor’s camera showed a man in a cap taking it and photographing the kitchen window. His face was turned away, but his dark jacket carried the logo of Gideon’s security firm.
Torres asked Rosa and Emma to describe what had happened. Emma said the man had knocked and told her he knew her father.
“I didn’t open it,” she said.
“You did exactly right,” Claire told her.
Emma held on to her mother. “Can we go somewhere he doesn’t know?”
Claire looked at me. I owned houses with gates and cameras. I also knew that, a week ago, Gideon had the codes for every one of them.
Leah arranged a hotel under her own name. Torres assigned an officer to watch the lobby until Gideon and the man at Claire’s house could be found. For the first time since the ballroom, I felt useful carrying Emma’s bag and following the instructions Claire gave me.
The next day, the forensic examiner called Leah. The flash drive Elliot had handed me contained a list of transfers from the foundation to five companies. Two shared a mailing address. Another paid rent on the supposedly closed Harbor House building. There were records showing Elliot had approved the transfers, but the system log also showed someone had used Claire’s old credentials months after her access was revoked.
“Can they tell who?” I asked.
“Not from this copy,” Leah said. “Torres is seeking the original server logs.”
Elliot called later that afternoon. Leah put him on speaker with his consent.
“I’m going to the police,” he said. “My lawyer is coming with me.”
“Tell them who used Claire’s account,” Claire said.
“I will.”
“Tell them what happened to Daniel.”
The line stayed quiet.
Finally Elliot said, “I didn’t know about the car until after.”
Claire gripped the edge of the hotel desk.
“What car?”
“Celeste told Gideon to swap Daniel’s car for a fleet sedan. She said Daniel had copied documents and she wanted to know where he was taking them. When he died, she made me sign a paper saying the sedan was at the office all evening.”
“Did you know she planned to hurt him?” Torres asked. She had arrived during the call and identified herself.
“No. I knew she wanted the files.”
Elliot was breathing hard.
“There’s a dispatch book. Carbon copies. Gideon took the computer, but the book should still be in the old motor pool office.”
Torres asked him to come to the station. He agreed. Two hours later, his lawyer called to say Elliot had been attacked in his parking garage. He was conscious at the hospital, but his phone and briefcase were gone.
Torres sent officers to the motor pool. The dispatch office was locked and dark. When they obtained access, the book was missing.
Elliot’s confession was incomplete. The drive showed fraud; it did not establish who had moved Daniel’s car or what happened to him on the road.
That night, Emma found me in the hotel lounge while Claire spoke to Leah.
“Was Daddy scared?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
She considered that. “Mommy says we can be scared and still do something good.”
“She’s right.”
“Daddy built me a stage so my animals could talk.” Emma sat beside me. “Rosa found his letter there. Do you think he knew she’d find it?”
“I think he hoped someone would.”
Emma leaned against my arm. I had missed fourteen months of chances to sit beside her like that. Her trust felt undeserved, but I stayed still and let her rest.
In the morning, Torres called with better news. Elliot had given a recorded statement from his hospital bed. He admitted making false payments, using Claire’s credentials, and helping Celeste hide the transfer list. He also identified the company that received the money for the silver sedan.
It was a security contractor Gideon owned.
“There’s enough for warrants on the financial records,” Torres said. “For Daniel’s death, we’re still working.”
Claire listened without speaking.
After the call, she packed Emma’s markers for school. The principal had agreed to meet her at the entrance and keep all pickup arrangements between them directly. Emma wanted to see her friends. Claire checked the plan with Torres and decided to let her go.
At two thirty, the principal called Claire.
Emma was not in her classroom.
Celeste had come to the school twenty minutes earlier. She was still listed as an approved pickup contact from the days when I had asked her to collect Emma.
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A staff member had tried to call Claire before releasing her. The call appeared to come from Claire’s number, and a woman’s voice had confirmed the pickup.
Claire had her phone in her hand the entire time.
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