Chapter 6 - Someone Was Following Me
Hawthorne security identified the photographer within ninety minutes.
Not by face.
By car.
A dark gray Audi had appeared on traffic cameras outside the diner, then again near my office.
Registered owner:
Northstar Investigative Services.
Private investigators.
Daniel looked across the conference table.
“Julian hired them.”
“How do you know?”
“Northstar billed Sterling Development yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
“Six hours after the wedding ceremony.”
That detail made my stomach turn.
Julian had hired someone to follow me on our wedding day.
Why?
Daniel tapped the invoice.
“Service description says domestic asset verification.”
I stared at him.
“Asset verification?”
“Could mean locating property. Accounts. Vehicles.”
“Or me.”
“Yes.”
I looked at the photograph on my phone again.
You should have gotten on the plane.
“Did Northstar send this?”
“We don’t know.”
“Find out.”
Daniel nodded.
Evan entered the conference room carrying his laptop.
“We traced the message.”
“Already?”
“Sort of.”
He sat down.
“It came through a disposable messaging service, but the device used a Wi-Fi network six minutes earlier.”
“Where?”
Evan rotated the laptop toward me.
The Sterling house.
No one spoke.
“Who was home?”
I asked.
“We can’t tell.”
“Beatrice. Cynthia. Julian.”
“Most likely.”
Arthur had gone back.
That bothered me.
He had promised to contact me after speaking to Beatrice about the safe-deposit box.
Three hours had passed.
No call.
No message.
I texted him.
Are you safe?
No response.
Daniel watched me.
“You need to stay somewhere Julian doesn’t know.”
“I have an apartment downtown.”
“He knows it.”
“A hotel?”
“He may check.”
I thought for a moment.
“My grandmother’s house.”
Daniel looked surprised.
“The one in Evanston?”
“No one has lived there in six years.”
“And Julian?”
“Has never been there.”
That evening, security drove me north.
My grandmother Evelyn had died when I was twenty-nine.
She left me the old lakefront house where my mother grew up.
I couldn’t bring myself to sell it.
So I kept it maintained.
Empty, but alive.
When I entered, the house smelled faintly of wood polish and lavender.
I stood in the dark foyer and suddenly wanted my grandmother more than I had in years.
She had been impossible to intimidate.
Five feet two inches tall.
Silver hair.
A voice that could quiet an entire room.
When I was ten, she told me something I never forgot.
People show you who they are whenever they believe there will be no consequences.
Breakfast had been Julian’s moment.
He believed marriage meant permanence.
He believed I was trapped enough to tolerate what I would have rejected while dating.
He showed me who he was.
The question was how much worse the truth became.
I turned on a lamp.
My phone buzzed.
Arthur.
I answered immediately.
“Where have you been?”
His breathing was uneven.
“Claire.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“In my car.”
“What happened?”
“Beatrice knows.”
My stomach tightened.
“Knows what?”
“That I spoke to you.”
“How?”
“Julian.”
Of course.
Arthur continued.
“He had someone follow me.”
“Northstar.”
“You know?”
“Yes.”
Arthur cursed softly.
“I should have realized.”
“Did you ask Beatrice about the bank box?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“She refused.”
“Not surprising.”
“She also moved something.”
“What?”
“The ledgers.”
I stood.
“How do you know?”
“I went to where I kept copies.”
“You had copies?”
“Photographs.”
“And?”
“Gone.”
My pulse climbed.
“Where?”
“External drive.”
“Gone from the house?”
“Yes.”
“Who knew?”
“No one.”
“Apparently someone did.”
He was quiet.
Then he said, “Claire, I found something else.”
“What?”
“A receipt.”
“For?”
“A storage facility.”
“Whose?”
“Cynthia.”
I walked toward the kitchen.
“Why is that important?”
“Because Cynthia doesn’t use storage.”
“You’re sure?”
“She lives in a four-bedroom condo by herself.”
Fair point.
“What kind of unit?”
“I don’t know.”
“Address?”
Arthur read it to me.
A facility near Cicero.
I forwarded the information to Daniel.
“Do not go there,” I told Arthur.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
“And Claire?”
“Yes?”
“Beatrice told Julian something tonight.”
“What?”
“She told him to fix his mistake.”
A chill moved through me.
“What mistake?”
“You.”
The line went silent.
I thought the call had dropped.
“Arthur?”
Nothing.
“Arthur?”
Then I heard movement.
A door opening.
A voice in the background.
Julian.
“Dad?”
Arthur whispered,
“I have to go.”
The call ended.
I stared at the phone.
Five minutes later, Daniel called.
“We checked the storage facility.”
“Fast.”
“We have people.”
“What did you find?”
“The unit is under Cynthia Sterling’s name.”
“And?”
“She rented it fourteen months ago.”
“Before Julian and I were engaged.”
“Yes.”
“Can we access it?”
“Not without permission or legal authority.”
“Then get legal authority.”
“We need probable cause.”
I sat at my grandmother’s kitchen table.
The same table where my mother used to do homework.
“Can the forged transfers give us that?”
“Maybe.”
“Use them.”
“I will.”
I heard a noise.
Not through the phone.
Inside the house.
A soft click.
I froze.
Daniel continued speaking.
“Claire?”
I raised one finger as though he could see me.
Another noise.
From the front hallway.
I had locked the door.
Security was outside.
Or should have been.
“Daniel.”
My voice dropped.
“Someone’s in the house.”
“Where are you?”
“Kitchen.”
“Lock yourself somewhere.”
I moved quickly toward my grandmother’s pantry.
Old houses had strange layouts.
This one had a service corridor connecting the kitchen to a rear mudroom.
I slipped through and closed the door behind me.
Daniel was already contacting security.
Footsteps entered the kitchen.
Slow.
Careful.
Not someone searching randomly.
Someone who believed they knew where I was.
I pressed myself against the wall.
Then I heard a man’s voice.
“Claire?”
My heart pounded.
Julian.
Of all the people I expected, somehow hearing his voice frightened me most.
“Claire, I know you’re here.”
How?
No one knew about this house.
No one.
I moved toward the rear door.
Julian continued.
“I don’t want to fight.”
I reached the mudroom.
“Claire.”
Closer now.
“I just want my wife to come home.”
The back door opened before I could touch it.
I nearly screamed.
Hawthorne security consultant Marcus Reed stood outside.
“Ms. Bennett.”
He pulled me behind him.
Another security officer entered from the front.
Voices rose.
Thirty seconds later, Julian appeared in the hallway with both hands visible.
He looked furious.
“This is insane.”
Marcus blocked him.
“Sir, you need to leave.”
“This is my wife.”
“That does not give you permission to enter.”
“The door was unlocked.”
“It was not.”
Julian looked at me.
I had never seen him look so cold.
Then he smiled.
Not at Marcus.
At me.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
My skin prickled.
“Know what?”
He adjusted his jacket.
“How I found you.”
No one answered.
May you like
Julian’s smile widened slightly.
“You carried the answer here yourself.”
