Chapter 5 - HE TOOK MY DAUGHTER AND CALLED IT A VACATION
I called Grant eleven times.
He rejected every call.
Rebecca contacted the police while Daniel called the emergency family court number.
I called Lucy again.
Straight to voicemail.
My body felt detached from the room.
People were speaking.
Police.
Phone numbers.
Vehicle descriptions.
License plates.
Passports.
Court orders.
I heard every word as though I were underwater.
Then Rebecca gripped my shoulders.
“Claire.”
I looked at her.
“Lucy has a tablet.”
“What?”
“Does it have location services?”
“Yes.”
“Can you access her account?”
My hands moved before my brain caught up.
I opened the family locator app.
For years, I had used it for ordinary things.
Checking whether Lucy’s school bus had arrived.
Finding the tablet when she left it in the couch cushions.
Now a small blue dot was moving east on Interstate 78.
I stared.
“They’re driving.”
Rebecca gave the location to police.
Daniel asked, “Where could he be going?”
I zoomed out.
New Jersey.
Newark Airport.
My stomach dropped.
“Airport.”
Rebecca was already relaying it.
The police told us not to follow.
I followed anyway.
Daniel drove.
Rebecca came with us.
No one tried very hard to stop me.
The blue dot moved steadily.
Fifty-eight miles per hour.
Sixty-three.
Then seventy-one.
Every few minutes it paused in traffic.
Every pause felt like oxygen.
Then it moved again.
Grant finally called.
Rebecca put the phone on speaker.
“Where is Lucy?”
I asked.
“She’s with her father.”
“You’re violating a court order.”
“Stop being dramatic.”
“Bring her back.”
“Sign the settlement.”
Rebecca looked at me sharply.
There it was.
Clear.
Recorded.
“What does my divorce settlement have to do with Lucy?”
Grant exhaled.
“Everything doesn’t need to become a legal war.”
“You took our daughter and told her we might not come back unless I signed.”
“I told her we’re taking a vacation.”
“With passports.”
Silence.
Then Grant lowered his voice.
“Claire, listen carefully. You don’t understand what you’ve gotten involved in.”
“My inheritance?”
“That money comes with problems.”
“The only problem I see is you.”
“You think Mercer is your friend? You think those Vance people care about you? They care about controlling forty-four million dollars.”
“And you don’t?”
“I’m your husband.”
“You were sleeping with my sister.”
“That has nothing to do with business.”
For a moment, even Rebecca looked stunned by the arrogance.
“Bring Lucy home.”
“Sign the papers.”
“No.”
“You’ll regret that.”
“No, Grant. You will.”
I ended the call.
My hands were shaking.
Rebecca stared at the phone.
“He just tied access to your child directly to a financial demand.”
“Is that enough?”
“For what?”
“To stop him.”
Her expression hardened.
“It helps.”
The blue dot left the interstate.
Not toward Newark.
Toward a small regional airport.
Daniel knew it.
“There are private charter operators there.”
Of course.
Grant knew contractors who owned aircraft.
My terror sharpened.
Commercial airports had TSA.
Passenger records.
Security.
A private charter could get Lucy out faster.
We were twenty-three minutes away when her location stopped moving.
My heart nearly stopped with it.
“Why did it stop?”
Daniel glanced at the screen.
“They arrived.”
Police reached the airport before we did.
By the time Daniel’s car turned through the entrance, flashing lights reflected off a row of hangars.
I was out before he fully stopped.
“Claire!”
Rebecca ran after me.
An officer intercepted us.
“Mrs. Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“Your daughter is safe.”
My knees nearly collapsed.
“Where?”
“She’s inside the terminal office.”
I pushed past him.
Lucy came around the corner wearing pink sneakers and her blue winter jacket.
“Mom!”
I dropped to my knees.
She ran into me.
I held her so tightly she complained.
“You’re squishing me.”
“I know.”
I loosened my grip.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded.
Then whispered, “Daddy got really mad.”
Behind her, two officers escorted Grant from the building.
He was not handcuffed.
Yet.
Natalie followed.
Her mascara had run down one cheek.
She looked terrified.
Grant saw me.
“This is ridiculous!”
One officer told him to keep walking.
“I was taking my daughter on vacation!”
Rebecca stepped forward.
“After a judge expressly prohibited interstate travel without permission?”
Grant ignored her.
He looked at me.
“You called the police on Lucy’s father?”
“You used her to threaten me.”
“I never threatened anyone.”
“We recorded the call.”
His face changed.
Natalie heard it too.
She stopped walking.
“You recorded him?”
Grant snapped toward her.
“Shut up.”
Something passed over Natalie’s face.
Fear again.
Then anger.
The same officer directed her toward a separate room.
Grant looked at her.
“Don’t say anything.”
It wasn’t a suggestion.
For the first time, I wondered if my sister had gone from accomplice to hostage somewhere along the way.
Not innocent.
Never innocent.
But perhaps trapped in a mess she helped create.
Grant’s planned “vacation” collapsed under evidence.
Lucy’s suitcase contained clothes for two weeks.
Grant’s luggage contained cash.
Twenty-seven thousand dollars.
There were three passports.
His.
Lucy’s.
Natalie’s.
And printed flight information for a charter to Nassau.
Grant insisted they planned to return.
The judge did not believe him.
The next morning, his unsupervised parenting time was suspended pending investigation.
Lucy came home with me.
For the first time in days, I slept more than two consecutive hours.
Then Natalie called.
From a number I didn’t recognize.
I answered only because Rebecca was sitting beside me.
“Claire?”
Her voice sounded broken.
“Where are you?”
“With a lawyer.”
“Grant’s lawyer?”
“No.”
Rebecca silently gestured for me to keep her talking.
Natalie sniffed.
“I need to tell you something.”
“Then tell me.”
“He lied to me.”
I almost laughed.
“You’ll need to be more specific.”
“About the money. About you. About everything.”
“You pretended to be me before you moved into my house. Don’t blame Grant for everything.”
“I know.”
Her voice cracked.
“I know what I did.”
“Why?”
A long silence.
Then:
“Because Mom loved you more.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
Not money.
Not originally.
Something much older.
“You really believe that?”
“She kept things for you.”
“The necklace?”
“Letters. Pictures. A box.”
“What box?”
“I found it after she died.”
My pulse quickened.
“What was inside?”
“Letters from Nathaniel.”
“You said you found one.”
“I lied.”
Rebecca wrote: KEEP GOING.
“How many?”
“Six.”
My chest tightened.
“Where are they?”
“Grant has them.”
I stood.
“What?”
“He took the box after I showed him.”
“When?”
“Almost a year ago.”
So that was how Grant knew.
Not seventeen days ago.
Not when the registered letter arrived.
Almost a year.
“You were sleeping with him then?”
Natalie cried silently for several seconds.
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“Why did you go to Nathaniel?”
“Grant said if he was really rich, we needed to find out what he wanted before you knew.”
“We?”
“He told me you’d throw me away the second you had money.”
“You slept with my husband.”
“I know!”
Her voice broke into a sob.
“I know, Claire.”
I felt almost nothing.
Maybe there was a limit to pain.
Maybe I had reached it.
“What papers did you tell me were in Grant’s office?”
Natalie became quiet.
“In the bottom drawer of the gray filing cabinet. There’s a false back.”
“What’s inside?”
“Contracts. Copies of your signatures. Vance documents.”
Rebecca leaned forward.
“Anything else?”
Natalie heard her.
“Who is that?”
“My attorney.”
Natalie inhaled sharply.
“Then she needs to know Grant has a contract with Nathaniel’s real signature on it.”
Daniel, who had just entered the room, stopped.
“What contract?” I asked.
“A funding agreement.”
“For what?”
“Grant’s company.”
“How much?”
“Ten million.”
Daniel’s face drained.
Natalie continued.
“Grant said Nathaniel agreed to invest ten million dollars in Bennett Residential.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I saw Nathaniel’s signature.”
Daniel sat down.
“Ask her for the date,” he whispered.
“When was it signed?”
Natalie told me.
Daniel closed his eyes.
Three weeks before Nathaniel died.
“Claire,” he said quietly, “Nathaniel did meet with Grant around that time.”
My stomach dropped.
“Why?”
Daniel did not answer.
Natalie whispered, “Grant said if you fight him in the divorce, he’ll enforce the contract against the estate.”
Ten million dollars.
Almost a quarter of the fortune.
“Is the agreement real?” I asked Daniel.
“I don’t know.”
Natalie spoke again.
“There’s something else.”
I gripped the phone.
“What?”
“The contract says Grant gets the money even if Nathaniel dies.”
Daniel’s face hardened.
“That isn’t unusual by itself.”
Natalie continued.
“But there’s a second page Grant keeps separate.”
“What second page?”
“It transfers an ownership interest.”
“In what?”
She hesitated.
“In the Vance estate.”
Daniel stood so abruptly his chair hit the wall.
“That is legally impossible unless—”
He stopped.
Unless something.
“What?” I demanded.
Daniel looked at me.
“Unless Nathaniel signed a separate assignment or codicil.”
Natalie started crying again.
“Claire, I saw the page.”
My mouth went dry.
“What did it say?”
“That if Nathaniel died before the investment closed, Grant Bennett would receive ten million dollars directly from the estate.”
Daniel’s expression told me this was no longer just family drama.
It was a war over my father’s will.
Then Natalie said the sentence that changed everything again.
“And Claire?”
“Yes?”
“I know why Nathaniel signed it.”
I waited.
May you like
My sister whispered:
“Grant told him the ten million dollars was for you.”
