Chapter 7 - The Island
Detective Torres wanted to send a tactical team immediately.
Marcus stopped her.
“If Linda’s signal is genuine, she may be helping us. If Richard sees police vehicles, he could move Arthur.”
“And if we wait, he could kill him,” Torres replied.
I stared at the frozen clock in the video.
The old repair yard had closed when I was nine. A windstorm knocked out the electricity at three in the afternoon, damaging nearly every clock in the office. Grandpa never repaired them.
Dad used to take Ethan there to fish.
He never took me.
“I can approach from the river,” Daniel said. “The rear dock is hidden by trees.”
Torres agreed to position officers nearby while Daniel, Marcus, and I used a small maintenance boat.
“You are not going inside,” Torres told me.
“He asked for me.”
“He asked for the documents.”
“He will not release Grandpa unless he sees me.”
Torres looked as if she wanted to refuse.
Then she said, “You will wear a transmitter.”
At two thirty in the morning, we launched from a private dock upriver.
Rain fell steadily. The river was almost black.
Daniel navigated without lights.
The repair yard appeared through the trees twenty minutes later. One warehouse remained standing, its roof sagging over rusted machinery.
A light glowed inside.
We tied the boat beneath the rear dock.
Marcus checked my transmitter.
“If Richard asks for the cashbox, give it to him.”
“It contains the original evidence.”
“It contains copies.”
I looked at him.
Marcus opened his coat and showed me the real ledger sealed inside a waterproof pouch.
“You didn’t think I’d bring everything?”
For the first time that night, I almost smiled.
Daniel stayed near the boat while Marcus and I moved toward the warehouse.
A side door stood open.
Inside, Grandpa remained tied to the chair.
Dad paced nearby.
Ethan leaned against a workbench, holding a gun.
Mom sat on the floor with her hands bound.
In the video, the rope had been hidden behind her body.
She had not been free.
Calvin Reese stood beside Dad.
He was in his late sixties, thin, silver-haired, and perfectly dressed despite the filthy warehouse.
Dr. Kline was there too.
And Mason.
The entire conspiracy had gathered in one place.
Dad saw me first.
“You came.”
I held up the metal cashbox.
“Let them go.”
Calvin smiled. “Miss Bennett, family loyalty is such an expensive weakness.”
Grandpa’s face was swollen.
“Claire, leave.”
Ethan lifted the gun.
“She’s not leaving.”
I placed the box on a table.
Dad opened it and pulled out the ledger.
He flipped through the pages.
Calvin examined the land agreement.
“These appear authentic,” he said.
“They are,” I replied.
“Where is Walter Sloan?”
“I don’t know.”
Dad looked at me. “You went to Astoria.”
“His room was empty.”
Mason shifted nervously.
Calvin noticed.
“Tell her,” he said.
Mason looked at Dad.
Dad’s expression warned him.
But fear had already cracked Mason once.
It cracked him again.
“Walter escaped.”
Grandpa lifted his head.
“He’s alive?”
Mason swallowed.
“We brought him here. Reese wanted him to sign away the land claim.”
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“He got loose during a storm. He took one of the old boats.”
Calvin struck Mason with the back of his hand.
“You fool.”
Mason staggered.
Dad turned on Calvin. “Enough.”
The balance between them was changing.
Dad had believed Calvin was his partner.
Calvin saw Dad as an employee.
Mom looked at me.
“Claire,” she whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Dad spun toward her.
“Be quiet.”
“No.” Her voice grew stronger. “She deserves the truth.”
Dad grabbed her hair.
Grandpa tried to rise, but the ropes held him.
“Let her go!” I shouted.
Mom looked directly at me.
“I helped him.”
Tears ran down her face.
“I knew about the forged documents. I knew about the loan. I wanted the money.”
Dad tightened his grip.
“But I didn’t know they planned to poison Arthur.”
Dr. Kline stepped forward. “It was not poison.”
“What did you give him?” I demanded.
“A medication that raised his blood pressure and increased clotting risk. Nothing more.”
Grandpa stared at him in horror.
“You caused the stroke.”
Kline looked away.
Mom continued.
“Richard told me Arthur would become weak. He said the court would give us control. I believed no one would be seriously hurt.”
“You handed Kline the drugs,” I said.
She nodded.
“I will confess to everything. Just get Arthur out.”
Dad released her and slapped her across the mouth.
Ethan flinched.
“Dad, stop.”
“Not now.”
“You said nobody would get hurt.”
Dad turned toward him. “You nearly ran over Arthur at the warehouse.”
“That was Mason.”
Mason’s head snapped up. “You told me to scare them!”
Everyone began speaking at once.
Calvin shouted for silence.
Then Grandpa laughed.
It was weak, but unmistakable.
Dad stared at him.
“What is funny?”
“You chose cowards,” Grandpa said. “And cowards always confess when the room gets cold.”
Calvin walked toward him.
“You still think you are in control.”
“No,” Grandpa replied. “Claire is.”
Calvin turned toward me.
I held his gaze.
Then sirens sounded in the distance.
Dad looked at my coat.
“The transmitter.”
Ethan aimed the gun at me.
Marcus stepped from the shadows and struck his wrist. The gun fired into the ceiling.
Everything exploded into motion.
Dad grabbed the cashbox.
Calvin ran toward the rear door.
Mason tackled Dr. Kline.
Mom crawled toward Grandpa.
I kicked Ethan’s gun across the floor.
Dad caught me around the throat.
He dragged me backward, using me as a shield.
“Tell the police to stop,” he hissed.
Grandpa fought against the ropes.
“Richard, let her go.”
Dad pressed something cold against my side.
A knife.
Police lights flashed through the warehouse windows.
Calvin reached the rear dock, but Daniel appeared and knocked him into the mud.
Ethan raised his hands.
Mason shouted that he surrendered.
Dad pulled me toward a side exit.
“Move.”
We stumbled outside into the rain.
A speedboat waited beside the pier.
He forced me aboard and cut the rope.
The engine roared.
Police shouted from shore, but he accelerated into the darkness.
I fell against the deck.
Dad kept the knife in one hand and steered with the other.
“You destroyed everything,” he said.
“You did that yourself.”
“Arthur did it.”
“This was never about the company.”
“It was always about the company.”
His voice broke with decades of rage.
“He promised it to me. When I was twenty-two, he said I would inherit Bennett Marine. Then Walter came back and threatened the land deal. Arthur chose Walter’s guilt over his own son.”
“Grandpa said you tried to take the land in 1998.”
“I was saving the business.”
“You were stealing it.”
He turned toward me.
The boat veered.
“You sound exactly like him.”
The hull struck something beneath the water.
The engine screamed.
The boat spun sideways and threw us both to the deck.
Dad’s knife slid away.
I crawled toward it.
He grabbed my ankle.
We struggled as the boat drifted toward the rocky riverbank.
Then another light appeared on the water.
A small fishing vessel approached.
A man stood at the wheel.
Old.
Bearded.
Alive.
Dad saw him and froze.
The man raised a flare gun.
“Let her go, Richard.”
May you like
I knew who he was before he said another word.
Walter Sloan had come home.
