Chapter 7 - The Wrath of Miriam
The two police officers from Room 412 immediately stepped into the hallway, hands resting near their duty belts.
“Ma’am, step back!” the younger officer ordered. “This is a restricted medical wing. Lower your voice or you will be removed!”
Miriam didn't even look at him. She was glaring at me with pure, unadulterated hatred. This was the woman who had spent six years critiquing the way I folded napkins at Thanksgiving, who had casually mentioned at a family dinner that Preston should have married a girl from the Boston Cabot family instead of the orphan of an unproven tech engineer.
“You think you’re so clever, Claire,” Miriam hissed, her chest heaving. “Preston is sitting in a holding cell downtown! He went to the downtown branch to demand access to the security vaults, and they arrested him for trespassing and breach of trust! My son! In a cell like a common criminal!”
“That’s where criminals go, Miriam,” I said, standing up from the phlebotomy chair. I calmly rolled down the sleeve of my blouse. “He committed corporate fraud. He forged documents. He stole money from our joint assets.”
“That money belonged to the Callaways!” Miriam shrieked. “Your father was a nobody! A peasant who built a toy in a garage! Edmund gave your father everything he had!”
“Shut up, Miriam!” Edmund’s voice cut through the corridor like a whip crack.
Edmund stepped past his wife, his face ash-gray. He looked twenty years older than he had that morning in the courtroom. His shoulders were slumped, his expensive tie loosened. He looked at me not with anger, but with a cold, desperate calculation.
“Claire,” Edmund said, ignoring the officers who were now watching him closely. “We need to speak in private. Now.”
“Anything you have to say to Ms. Vance can be said through me,” Reese intervened, stepping between Edmund and myself, his broad shoulders completely blocking Edmund’s view of me. “And considering you are currently under investigation by the SEC for secondary trust dissipation, Mr. Callaway, I strongly suggest you don't utter another word without your criminal counsel present.”
Edmund ignored Reese. He stared past Reese’s shoulder, his eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that bordered on madness.
“The fireproof box Detective Vance found in the river,” Edmund said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Celeste didn't drown, Claire. She ditched that car on purpose. She left that box for you because she knows what’s inside it. But you don't know what you’re unleashing.”
“What’s inside the box, Edmund?” I asked, keeping my voice cold and calm.
Edmund swallowed hard. His gaze flickered toward the glass window of Room 412, where the infant lay fighting for his life.
“The patents,” Edmund whispered. “The original optical compression algorithms your father wrote in nineteen-ninety-four. The ones Callaway Holdings used to build our entire telecommunications portfolio.”
I felt the ground shift beneath my feet.
“My father’s patents were abandoned,” I said. “The state records showed they failed technical validation.”
“They didn't fail,” Edmund murmured, his gaze dropping to the floor. “I paid the patent examiner fifty thousand dollars to reject Arthur’s application. Two days later, Arthur figured out the examiner was dirty. He called me from his car on Route 9. He was on his way to the state attorney general’s office to report me.”
A suffocating silence descended over the corridor. Even Miriam stopped breathing, her eyes darting between her husband and the police officers standing just ten feet away.
“What did you do, Edmund?” I asked, my voice barely audible above the low hum of the hospital monitors.
“I didn't cut his brakes, Claire,” Edmund said, his voice cracking into a pathetic, desperate whine. “I swear to God on my mother’s grave, I didn't touch his car. But I called the private security firm we used for corporate espionage. I told them to run Arthur off the road. Just scare him. Just force him into the ditch so he missed the filing deadline.”
He closed his eyes. Tears leaked down his wrinkled, liver-spotted cheeks.
“They hit him too hard. The car rolled down the embankment. By the time the fire department arrived, Arthur was dead. And the lockbox containing the original encrypted discs with his master code was stolen from the trunk by my security team.”
“And Celeste?” I whispered.
“Celeste’s father was David Vance,” Edmund choked out. “David was in the passenger seat that night, Claire. He survived the crash, but his legs were crushed. I paid him off. I gave him two million dollars and threatened to destroy his family if he ever came back to the United States. He took the money, moved to France, and raised his daughter on the story of how the Callaways murdered her uncle.”
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Edmund looked up at me, his eyes wide and hollow.
“Celeste didn't just come for Preston’s money, Claire. She came to reclaim the Vance empire. And she used Preston’s greed to hand it all straight to you.”
