Chapter 12 - The Bargain Marcus Offered
Marcus looked smaller through the detention-center glass.
Without tailored suits, expensive watches, or Vivian standing beside him, he resembled an ordinary man with bruises on his face and fear beneath his eyes.
That frightened me in a different way.
Monsters were easier to understand when they looked like monsters.
Marcus looked like the man who had once brought me soup when I had the flu.
The man who painted Grace’s nursery.
The man who knelt outside a steel cage and smiled at my blood.
Naomi sat beside me during the interview. Daniel watched from an adjoining room.
“You have ten minutes,” Naomi said.
Marcus ignored her.
“Is the baby healthy?”
“Her name is Grace.”
“I asked if she’s healthy.”
“You lost the right to ask.”
His mouth tightened.
“My mother will call her Victoria.”
“She will never touch her.”
“You don’t know my mother.”
“I know enough.”
Marcus leaned toward the glass.
“Vivian has a cabin in the mountains. Not the family retreat you remember. Another structure farther north, built beneath an old hunting lodge.”
“Why did you mark the retreat?”
“Because the tunnel entrance begins there.”
Naomi opened a notebook.
“Coordinates?”
“I want a deal.”
“You are not in a position to demand one.”
“I can give you Vivian, Thomas, the financial ledgers, and the names of every judge, doctor, and police officer who helped us.”
The word us entered the room.
Marcus noticed.
“Don’t act surprised, Claire. You recorded me. You know what I did.”
“I know what you did to me.”
“You know part of it.”
My stomach turned.
“What else?”
He smiled slightly.
The old smile.
Naomi stood.
“We’re done.”
“No,” I said.
She looked at me.
“I want to hear it.”
Marcus’s hands rested on the table.
“When I met you, I already knew about the Hartwell trust.”
Our first meeting had not been accidental.
I thought we met at a friend’s birthday party. Marcus spilled wine near my chair, apologized, and spent the rest of the evening making me laugh.
He had researched me.
Chosen me.
Built a marriage around access to money I did not know existed.
“Did you ever love me?” I asked.
Naomi did not interrupt.
Marcus studied my face as though searching for the safest answer.
“I wanted to.”
It was worse than no.
“You were easy in the beginning,” he said. “Grateful. Loyal. You believed people could change.”
“You mean I believed you.”
“You made things difficult when you became pregnant.”
“Because the trust activated.”
“Because you stopped being manageable.”
I thought of every pregnancy appointment he insisted on attending. Every vitamin he handed me. Every meal he prepared after I became too dizzy to stand.
“How long were you drugging me?”
“Not every day.”
My hand closed into a fist.
“Did you plan to kill Grace?”
“No.”
“Did you plan to take her?”
“My mother did.”
“And you?”
“I wanted a son.”
There was no shame in his face.
Only annoyance.
As if Grace had failed him before she was born.
“What would you have done with her?”
“Vivian had families.”
The stolen children.
Emma.
Noah.
The empty bassinets beneath Harbor Light.
I stood so quickly the chair struck the wall.
Marcus smiled.
“There you are.”
Naomi moved beside me.
“What does that mean?”
“She finally hates me enough to become useful.”
I forced myself to sit again.
“You’re going to prison.”
“Maybe.”
“You will never see Grace.”
His expression hardened.
“She is my daughter.”
“No. She survived you. That does not make her yours.”
For the first time, real anger entered his eyes.
He pulled a folded sheet of paper from beneath his sleeve and pressed it against the glass.
A guard moved forward, but Naomi raised one hand.
The paper contained a sequence of numbers and names.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Access codes for the underground lodge. Vivian changed the first two. Thomas changed the third. I know the emergency override.”
“In exchange for what?”
“Protective custody. Reduced charges. No death-penalty referral if federal charges qualify.”
Naomi took the paper after the guard secured it.
“You understand cooperation does not erase attempted murder.”
“I understand value.”
He always had.
Naomi signaled that the interview was finished.
As I stood, Marcus spoke again.
“Claire.”
I turned despite myself.
“Thomas will not kill my mother immediately. He needs her retinal scan to access the Hartwell transfer archive.”
“And after that?”
“He will bury her where no one finds her.”
“Why should I care?”
“You shouldn’t.”
His eyes moved over my face.
“But you should care what she took from the house.”
“What?”
“The remaining dose.”
Naomi went still.
“What dose?”
Marcus smiled without warmth.
“The drug Dr. Lang developed to stop a newborn’s breathing without leaving an obvious trace.”
Grace was three floors above us under armed protection.
Still, panic struck me with full force.
“Vivian has it?”
“She had it prepared for the night Grace was born.”
Naomi pulled out her phone.
Hospital security doubled around Grace before we left the detention center.
The access codes proved genuine.
Satellite scans of the mountain property revealed a hidden structure beneath the old hunting lodge. Thermal imaging showed at least two people inside.
Possibly three.
A tactical team prepared to enter before sunset.
Then Marcus’s attorney delivered a second message.
Not from Marcus.
From Vivian.
A photograph showed her inside the underground lodge.
Her hands were bound.
Blood ran down one side of her face.
Behind her stood Thomas.
He held the silver medical case.
The message beneath the photograph read:
BRING CLAIRE AND THE CHILD.
OR VIVIAN DIES WITH THE NAMES.
Naomi deleted the photograph from the screen.
“You are not going.”
“He doesn’t actually want Grace there,” I said.
“He asked for her.”
“He wants me frightened enough to make a mistake.”
Daniel entered with the tactical plan.
“We can use the access tunnel Marcus identified.”
“Thomas will expect that.”
“Yes.”
“What won’t he expect?”
Daniel looked at me.
“He won’t expect you to understand him.”
I thought about every camera.
Every threat.
Every staged message.
Thomas needed control.
He needed people to follow the story he created.
So I would give him a different story.
“Tell him I’m bringing Grace,” I said.
Evelyn shook her head.
“No.”
“I’m not bringing her.”
May you like
I looked at the silver medical case in the photograph.
“But I’m going.”
