Chapter 6 - Daniel’s Safe
The sound of Richard’s voice in that cold room was like the scrape of a scalpel against bone.
Daniel lunged across the table toward the phone, his mouth wide to scream, but Sergeant Vance’s forearm caught him under the chin, slamming him back into his chair with a force that rattled the legs against the linoleum. Vance pressed a single thick finger against his lips: *Silence.*
Detective Ramos was already signaling through the two-way mirror, waving her hand in a tight circle. Down the hall, the trace technicians were scrambling.
“Richard,” I said, forcing my vocal cords to stay level, though every cell in my body was screaming. “Emma is in the burn unit. They’re scraping the skin off her face.”
A brief, static-laced silence hummed over the line.
“A tragic complication,” Richard said smoothly. His voice carried none of the frantic energy of a fugitive; it was the measured, boardroom cadence he used when foreclosing on a commercial property. “Children have a habit of rushing into things they don't understand. If you had taught her patience, Claire, she wouldn't be wearing bandages today.”
“You bastard,” I breathed, the hatred rising in my throat like bile. “You tried to blind me. In my own living room, on Christmas morning.”
“I tried to correct an imbalance,” Richard replied without a trace of remorse. “For two years, you’ve poisoned Daniel against his lineage. You’ve treated my bloodline like a disease you could cure with your suburban moralizing. I built the foundation your entire life rests upon, Claire. The roof over your head, the car in your driveway, the private school Emma attends—every brick was paid for with my sweat. And you dared to tell me I couldn't take my own granddaughter into the woods?”
“You left her in a truck outside a bar for three hours!”
“I was securing an investment,” he snapped, his voice dropping into that terrifying, icy register I had heard only once before, the night I threw him out of our house in October. “A man of my standing does not explain his schedule to a schoolteacher with an art history degree. But that’s academic now, isn't it? The lesson has been delivered.”
“Where are you, Richard?” I asked, my eyes darting to Ramos, who was staring at a digital monitor that had just lit up near the door. The trace was running.
“I’m closer than your husband thinks,” Richard whispered. “Ask Daniel about the safe in the attic, Claire. Ask him about the red binder behind the chimney wall. Ask him what he traded for that two-point-four million dollars before you decide who the real monster in your house is.”
The line went dead.
A sharp, flat disconnect tone buzzed through the speaker.
Detective Ramos swore under her breath, tossing her pen onto the legal pad. “Burner phone. Signal pinged off a tower near Oswego, right off the lake. He’s moving west along Route 104, not north toward Canada.”
“He’s doubling back,” Vance muttered, his jaw set. “He threw the border toll receipt as a decoy. He knows the north is where we’d concentrate troopers.”
I didn't care about Route 104. I didn't care about the state troopers or the border.
I turned my head slowly toward Daniel.
He was staring at the steel table, his hands shaking so violently that his fingernails clicked against the metal like dry insects.
“The attic safe,” I said. The words were quiet, perfectly spaced, carrying the weight of an executioner’s axe. “What is in the attic safe, Daniel?”
“Claire, please,” he choked out, not meeting my gaze. “He’s lying. He’s trying to destroy us from the outside. That’s what he does—he divides people!”
“Sergeant Vance,” I said, not taking my eyes off my husband. “My husband’s car is parked outside. His house keys are in his coat pocket. I want you to escort me back to my home.”
“Mrs. Pierce,” Ramos warned, “your home is an active secondary scene. We have technicians processing the living room.”
“Then you can process the attic while you’re there,” I said, rising to my feet. My voice was no longer trembling. The panic had burned away, leaving behind a cold, crystalline rage that felt almost narcotic. “Daniel, give them the key to the attic stairs, or I swear to God I will tell these detectives every single cash transaction you’ve hidden from the IRS for the last seven years.”
Daniel looked up, his face twisted into an expression of pathetic, sniveling terror.
Slowly, his fingers reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, brass tubular key on a separate ring. He set it on the cold steel between us.
“Claire,” he whispered, his voice cracking into nothingness. “If you open that binder… there’s no coming back from it. We won't have a family anymore.”
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“We don't have a family now,” I said.
***
