Chapter 4 - The Threat at the School
For several seconds, no one moved.
I stared at Jamie’s photograph.
My ten-year-old son was laughing in it.
His backpack hung from one shoulder.
He had no idea someone was watching him.
“When?”
My voice sounded distant.
Edward stepped closer.
“Three weeks ago.”
“You knew for three weeks?”
“Yes.”
“And you let him keep walking to school?”
“There has been security around him every day.”
I looked at him.
“What security?”
“The gray SUV near the school.”
I remembered it.
I had assumed it belonged to another parent.
“The man who buys coffee across from our house?”
“Security.”
“The woman who jogs past us every morning?”
Edward nodded.
My stomach turned.
“How many strangers around my family are actually people you hired?”
“Rachel—”
“How many?”
“Usually four.”
I sat down because my legs stopped cooperating.
Claire moved toward me.
I held up a hand.
“Don’t.”
Edward looked destroyed.
Good.
I wanted him destroyed.
Then I looked at Jamie’s photograph again.
Fear overpowered anger.
“Who sent it?”
“We don’t know.”
“Is it connected to the old kidnapping?”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?”
“The original organizer was never identified.”
“What about the men arrested?”
“Paid intermediaries.”
Claire explained that federal investigators had long suspected someone connected to Whitmore Infrastructure.
An insider.
Someone who knew Edward’s movements.
Someone who understood the family trusts.
The investigation eventually went cold.
“Why would they come back now?”
Edward removed another document.
“Because my father died four months ago.”
I stared.
I didn’t know his father had died.
Another basic fact.
Another family event I had been excluded from.
Edward saw my reaction.
“I wanted to tell you.”
“Did you attend the funeral?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Remember the three-day project in Baltimore?”
I almost laughed again.
“Of course.”
I remembered packing extra socks.
He had gone to bury his father.
The absurdity was suffocating.
Claire continued.
Charles Whitmore’s death triggered a transfer of voting power.
Edward now controlled 52 percent of the family company.
“That makes him almost impossible to remove,” she said.
“And valuable to threaten,” I replied.
“Yes.”
My eyes returned to Jamie.
“What do they want?”
Edward spoke.
“My shares.”
“No.”
“That’s our assumption.”
“No, I mean no.”
I stood.
“We are going to the police.”
“Federal agents already know.”
“I want local police near Jamie.”
“We can do that.”
“I want his school informed.”
“That could increase exposure.”
“I don’t care what your security consultants think.”
Edward stopped.
For once, he didn’t argue.
“You’re his mother,” he said. “You decide.”
The words should have comforted me.
Instead I stared at him.
“I always was.”
He lowered his eyes.
That afternoon, we pulled Jamie from school.
We told him enough truth to make him careful without terrifying him.
Dad’s family owned a large company.
Someone might try to bother us because of it.
We needed to stay somewhere else for a while.
Jamie looked at Edward.
“So you’re rich?”
Edward glanced at me.
“Yes.”
“How rich?”
“Very.”
Jamie considered this.
“Like Uncle Pete rich?”
My brother Pete owned a boat.
I almost laughed.
“No,” I said. “More.”
“Like mansion rich?”
Edward nodded.
Jamie’s eyes widened.
“Do we have a mansion?”
“No,” I said immediately.
Edward almost smiled.
Jamie frowned.
“Then what’s the point?”
For the first time in two days, I laughed.
Even Edward did.
Then Jamie asked the question I dreaded.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
Edward knelt.
“Because I was scared.”
“Of Mom?”
“No.”
“Of me?”
“Never.”
“Then what?”
Edward looked at me before answering.
“Of losing you.”
Jamie frowned.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” I said quietly.
“It doesn’t.”
We moved that evening.
Not to a hotel.
To the Whitmore estate in Connecticut.
The property looked less like a house and more like a private university.
Stone buildings.
Iron gates.
Security cameras.
A lake.
Jamie stared through the car window.
“Dad.”
“Yes?”
“You definitely lied.”
Edward closed his eyes.
“I know.”
Jamie pointed toward a separate guesthouse.
“Is that bigger than our whole house?”
“Yes.”
“Wow.”
Then Jamie looked at me.
“Are we mad at him forever?”
I watched Edward pretend not to listen.
“I haven’t decided.”
Jamie nodded thoughtfully.
“Can I be mad and still use the pool?”
I laughed.
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
The gates closed behind us.
That night, I slept in a separate bedroom.
At 2:13 a.m., an alarm sounded.
Red lights flashed silently in the hallway.
Security guards ran outside.
Edward appeared at my door.
“Stay inside.”
“What happened?”
His face was pale.
“Someone breached the east fence.”
My heart jumped.
“Jamie.”
“He’s safe.”
Then a guard’s voice crackled over Edward’s radio.
“Mr. Whitmore, you need to see this.”
We went downstairs.
A package had been placed outside the gate.
Inside was one item.
A lunchbox.
The same blue model I packed for Edward every morning.
Inside were two sandwiches.
Apple slices.
And a handwritten note.
The handwriting wasn’t mine.
Edward unfolded it.
I watched his face change.
Then he handed it to me.
May you like
The message contained one sentence.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED DEAD.
