Chapter 7 - The Secret Safe
I unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open just three inches, keeping the security chain fastened.
"Go away, Patricia."
"You monster!" Patricia shrieked, gripping the doorframe. Her eyes were sunken, dark circles carved deep into her wrinkled face. "Grant is in a holding cell with murderers and drug dealers! He doesn't have his asthma medication! Dylan is in the medical ward with a fractured jaw! How could you do this to your own family?"
"They aren't my family," I said coldly. "They stopped being my family the day Grant forged my father’s name on a lien."
"We can settle this!" Patricia pleaded, her tone shifting violently from rage to desperate wheedling. She thrust her hands through the gap in the door, trying to hold it open. "Grant made a mistake! Men make mistakes, Nora! You know how Vanessa is—she seduced him! She waved that money in his face! If you testify for his defense, we can sell my house! We'll pay you back every cent!"
"Sell your house?" I let out a bitter, incredulous laugh. "Patricia, your house was purchased with Grant’s company bonus three years ago—money that Ethan Cole’s forensic auditors just proved was embezzled from his private logistics firm. The federal marshals will be placing a seizure notice on your front gate by noon today."
Patricia’s face drained of what little color it had left. Her hands dropped from the door. "What?"
"You're homeless, Patricia," I said with chilling precision. "Just like you intended me to be when Grant’s balloon payment on this house defaulted."
"No... no, that’s my home! I picked out the marble!"
"You picked out marble bought with stolen money," I said. "Now get off my porch before I call the local police to escort you off the property."
"Nora, please! Where am I supposed to go?"
"Try the women's shelter downtown," I said. "I hear they take walk-ins."
I shut the door and turned the lock. Patricia’s screams faded into choked sobs on the porch, followed by the sound of her heels dragging down the stone steps toward the waiting cab.
I took a deep breath, walked into Grant’s home office, and sat down at his mahogany desk. On the floor behind his credenza was a small fireproof safe—the one he always kept locked, claiming it contained confidential client portfolios.
Last night, while Grant was sitting in gravy and handcuffs, I had taken the silver key from his key ring.
I knelt down, inserted the key, and spun the combination dial to the date of his first big promotion: 0-9-1-4.
The safe clicked open.
Inside, beneath stacks of hundred-dollar bills and two foreign passports, was a leather-bound journal. I flipped it open. On the first page, written in Grant’s tight, arrogant handwriting, was a list of names, bank routing numbers, and offshore account codes titled: *Project Exit: Cayman Reserves.*
And at the bottom of the page was a name that made the blood freeze in my veins.
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Grant hadn't just conned Vanessa Whitmore.
Five years ago, before we were even married, Dylan and Grant had pulled the exact same scheme on another wealthy woman—a woman who had died under mysterious circumstances shortly after her trust was emptied.
