Chapter 6 - DETECTIVE GRANT
Grant admitted entering the house under General Brooks’s orders.
He believed he was supporting a national-security recovery.
He placed a listening device beneath the entry table and inspected the alarm.
He did not know Violet would be attacked.
But he knew Harper was being pressured and did nothing.
His robbery theory was designed to delay examination of the keypad and security footage.
Internal Affairs suspended him.
Then his listening device produced audio.
Before Harper arrived, someone was already inside.
A woman.
She searched the study and spoke into a radio.
“Claire’s card is missing.”
Her voice belonged to Laura Bennett.
Claire’s biological mother.
Officially dead seventeen years.
If Laura lived, Claire had been hidden from both parents deliberately.
Then Claire sent Violet a secure message from an unknown number.
MOM IS ALIVE.
DO NOT TRUST DAD.
Which dad?
Me?
Nathan?
The program had built confusion into every relationship.
Then Violet’s birthday envelope was opened under evidence protocol.
Inside was a handwritten card.
Dad, I found Claire.
Mom knows.
General Brooks knows.
Someone is using your face.
May you like
Under the card lay a photograph of Laura standing beside Harper at our kitchen counter three weeks earlier.
My wife had met the dead woman.
