Chapter 4 - TWELVE WITNESSES
The twelve witnesses existed.
Claire checked.
Grant and Marjorie had attended a charity dinner at the Hartford Regency the night Daniel died. Photographs placed them there from eight until nearly midnight.
Camille sent Claire the event album herself.
“Thought this might help with your confusion,” she wrote.
Claire stared at the photographs.
Marjorie beside donors.
Marjorie onstage.
Marjorie dancing.
Marjorie at 10:39 p.m.
Impossible.
Thomas studied the images.
“Metadata?”
“Clean.”
“Could be manipulated.”
“Then why twelve witnesses?”
Thomas leaned back.
“Because good alibis aren’t built after a crime. They’re built before it.”
Claire looked at him.
He explained.
Marjorie had employed a personal assistant named Helen Dawes for eighteen years. Same height. Similar build. At crowded events, photographs could be staged strategically. A coat, hair styling, distance.
Claire shook her head.
“That sounds insane.”
“So does murder until someone proves it.”
Thomas gave Claire another file.
Her father had been investigating missing money from Caldwell Holdings.
Not thousands.
Thirty-eight million dollars.
The money had moved through consulting firms controlled by proxies.
One belonged to Camille.
Claire stared at the page.
“Camille is part of this.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Your father met her secretly. That means she could have been helping him.”
Claire thought of Camille in her chair, smirking.
“Or setting him up.”
Thomas nodded.
“Exactly.”
Claire returned home and found Grant waiting in their bedroom.
He closed the door.
“Are you following my mother?”
Claire said nothing.
He stepped closer.
“Answer me.”
“Were you in Dad’s storage unit?”
Grant’s expression barely changed.
Barely.
“You’re spiraling.”
“Were you there?”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
“From this.”
He gestured at her.
“This obsession.”
Claire laughed once.
“My father suspected you.”
Grant’s face hardened.
“Your father hated me.”
“He didn’t.”
“He tolerated me because you loved me.”
Claire saw genuine anger now.
That mattered.
Grant was not acting entirely.
“What did he find?”
Grant shook his head.
“You want a villain because grief is easier when you can blame someone.”
“That sounds like something your mother rehearsed for you.”
Grant grabbed her wrist.
Not violently.
But firmly.
“Do not go after her.”
Claire looked down at his hand.
He released her.
“Why?”
Grant’s voice dropped.
“Because you have no idea what she’ll do if she thinks you’re a threat.”
Claire went still.
“What does that mean?”
He turned away.
For the first time, Claire saw fear in her husband.
Real fear.
Then his phone buzzed.
A preview flashed before he snatched it up.
CAMILLE: SHE FOUND THE SAFE. MARJORIE SAYS MOVE TO PHASE TWO.
Claire pretended she had not seen it.
Grant pocketed the phone.
“I’m going downstairs.”
Claire waited until the door shut.
May you like
Then she whispered to herself:
“Phase two.”
