Chapter 14 - GRANT’S LIE
Grant answered on the ninth call.
“Stop calling me.”
Vanessa put him on speaker.
“Where are you?”
“Driving.”
“Laura recorded you.”
Silence.
Then Grant said, “You played it?”
Daniel leaned toward the phone.
“Where are you?”
Grant laughed bitterly.
“So now everybody wants answers.”
“Ethan ended up in a stairwell with your cuff link beside him.”
“I told you what happened.”
“Did you lie?”
“Yes.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
I felt Lily stir against my shoulder.
“What part?” I asked.
Grant recognized my voice.
“Claire, stay out of this.”
“No.”
He exhaled.
“I didn’t meet Ethan because he called me. I called him.”
“Why?”
“Because Martin contacted me this morning.”
Daniel’s expression hardened.
Martin Shaw again.
Grant said Martin wanted the brass vault key.
“How did Martin know Ethan had it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you ask Ethan for it?”
“Because Martin threatened Vanessa.”
Vanessa whispered, “What?”
Grant’s voice cracked.
“He said he could make it look like you stole the fourteen million.”
That explained Grant’s fear.
Not his recording.
I asked about Laura.
Grant went quiet.
Then admitted Laura had approached him two weeks before her death.
She knew he had witnessed Vanessa’s company paperwork.
She asked him to help retrieve copies from Martin’s office.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“What did you find?”
“Nothing useful.”
Daniel snapped, “Stop deciding what’s useful.”
Grant finally told us.
He found a folder containing copies of Daniel’s signature, Ethan’s compliance credentials, Vanessa’s LLC documents, and Charles’s Northstar authorizations.
A fraud kit.
Four people’s legitimate information assembled so transactions could be made to look authentic.
“Why didn’t you take it?”
“I tried.”
That was what Laura’s recording captured.
Grant had told her to delete photographs from her phone because Martin had security cameras in the office and would know they had accessed the folder.
Laura refused.
The threatening voice on the recording wasn’t Grant threatening Laura.
It was Grant panicking about Martin.
That changed the assumption again.
“Where are Laura’s photographs?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“She died eleven days ago.”
“I know.”
“Did you tell Ethan?”
“Yes.”
Daniel leaned closer.
“Then why did Ethan distrust me?”
Grant’s answer came softly.
“Because one photograph showed Martin handing the folder to you.”
Daniel stopped breathing for a second.
“I never met Martin about that folder.”
“I know what I saw.”
“Where?”
“His office.”
“When?”
“April seventeenth. 8:40 p.m.”
Daniel shook his head.
“I was in Chicago.”
I remembered that trip.
He had video-called Lily from a hotel overlooking the river.
Grant said, “Then somebody wanted Laura to think you were there.”
A photograph could lie through context.
Or identification.
Or timing.
Then Grant finally told us where he was driving.
Martin Shaw’s office.
“Turn around,” Vanessa said.
“No.”
“Grant.”
“He has the second half of Laura’s note.”
My pulse jumped.
“How?”
“He texted me a picture.”
Grant forwarded it.
The image arrived on Vanessa’s phone.
The torn edge matched Lily’s piece.
The handwriting continued across the missing half.
And beneath Laura Benson’s notes was a handwritten instruction:
IF THEY USE LILY’S TRUST, CHECK DANIEL’S OFFICE TERMINAL.
Daniel stared.
His office terminal.
Not Ethan’s.
Not Charles’s.
His.
May you like
Then Grant whispered, “Martin says he’ll trade the page for Laura’s recorder.”
📖 Martin’s demand confirmed he feared Laura’s recording, but the reference to Daniel’s own office terminal pointed toward someone with intimate access to his daily life. 👇
