Chapter 7 - Grant’s Second Phone
Police released Nora shortly after three in the morning.
Grant was not formally arrested, but investigators confiscated his phone, briefcase, and passport. Lillian remained at the hotel for further questioning.
Daniel arranged a car to Connecticut.
Paige insisted on continuing with them. Mrs. Bell sat beside her, watching the empty highway.
Grant followed in a separate police vehicle.
Nora used the journey to examine the digital copies recovered from his briefcase.
The investigation reports supported part of Grant’s story. He had paid a former federal accountant to examine First Meridian Events. The reports connected it to Lillian but also identified unexplained payments originating from an Ashford family account.
The account belonged to Paige.
She leaned forward when Nora showed her.
“That is impossible.”
“The transfers used your authorization code.”
“Grant knows my codes.”
Grant could not hear from the other vehicle, but Daniel replied.
“Authorization requires Paige’s phone.”
Paige reached into her handbag.
Her primary phone was there.
Nora remembered something.
“At the hospital, you said Grant called you in the morning.”
“Yes.”
“Which number did he use?”
“His private number.”
“Show me.”
Paige opened the call log.
The number was not Grant’s.
It differed by one digit.
Daniel searched the registration. The account was prepaid and inactive.
Someone had imitated Grant’s voice or used a recording.
“Did the caller say anything personal?” Nora asked.
“He knew I was coming to dinner. He knew I had argued with Evelyn about the board vote. He told me not to eat beforehand because the chef had prepared something special.”
“There was no chef,” Mrs. Bell said. “Dinner was delivered.”
Another detail arranged by someone who knew the family’s plans.
Nora reviewed the photograph from Grant’s briefcase. It had been taken from a distance, probably through a window. Thomas Reed stood beside William Ashford and Lillian. The fourth figure was a young woman with long dark hair, her face partly obscured.
On the back, someone had written:
The company belongs to the one who survives the tenth year.
Nora enlarged the image.
A newspaper was visible on the table behind them. The photograph had been taken the year Nora was born.
“Celeste financed the company,” Nora said. “Why wasn’t she listed as an owner?”
Mrs. Bell answered.
“She wanted anonymity.”
“Why?”
“She was married to a man who controlled her finances. Investing without his permission could have cost her everything.”
“Who was her husband?”
Mrs. Bell looked at Daniel.
He knew.
“Edward Mercer,” Daniel said.
Nora turned.
“Your father?”
Daniel nodded.
The car seemed suddenly too small.
“My father represented William Ashford. Celeste was his second wife. I was a child when they married.”
“You never told me Evelyn had a sister.”
“I didn’t know. Celeste used another name.”
“What name?”
“Celia Ward.”
Elaine Ward had been the hotel reservation name.
Lillian’s middle name had not been the only connection.
“The shell company is registered to a dead director,” Nora said. “Who was he?”
Daniel searched the records.
When the result appeared, all color left his face.
“Peter Mercer.”
“Your brother?”
“My half-brother.”
Peter had died three years earlier in a boating accident. Daniel rarely discussed him. Nora knew only that the brothers had been estranged.
“Did Peter know about Celeste’s investment?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did he have access to your family records?”
“Yes.”
“Then someone could be using his identity to move money.”
Daniel remained silent.
The old estate appeared ahead as dawn lightened the horizon.
The building was larger than Nora remembered from photographs. Stone wings extended from a central mansion, and the renovated ballroom now served as the club’s event hall.
A security guard met them at the gate.
The club was closed.
Nora showed him the silver key and said police were following. He reluctantly allowed them inside.
The ballroom smelled of polished wood and old flowers. Above the dance floor, the restored ceiling displayed carved panels painted gold.
Mrs. Bell pointed toward a narrow corridor.
“The vault entrance was behind the musicians’ gallery.”
They climbed a staircase and entered a room lined with archived wine bottles.
At the back, Grant found a steel door concealed behind wooden shelving.
The silver key turned.
Inside was not a traditional vault.
It was a small windowless office preserved from the original estate. Filing cabinets stood against one wall. A projector occupied a table. On the desk rested a black telephone.
It began to ring.
Everyone stopped.
Nora answered.
“Hello?”
A distorted voice spoke.
“You were always supposed to arrive without Grant.”
Nora looked through the open door. Grant stood ten feet away between two officers.
“Who are you?”
“Ask your husband about his second phone.”
Grant’s face changed.
Nora lowered the receiver.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t have a second phone.”
The black telephone rang again.
Nora answered and placed the call on speaker.
The distorted voice continued.
“Left pocket of his hotel briefcase. Beneath the lining.”
An officer contacted the Philadelphia investigator.
Three minutes later, confirmation arrived.
A hidden phone had been found inside Grant’s confiscated briefcase.
Its recent messages were sent to a contact saved as C.
The final message had been sent at 9:42 p.m., shortly before Nora’s call.
Wrong women ate the cake. Begin the hospital plan.
Nora faced Grant.
“You told C what happened.”
“I didn’t send that.”
“It came from your phone.”
“I never saw that phone before.”
Daniel stared at the black telephone.
“Whoever is calling knew exactly where police would find it.”
“Which means it was planted,” Grant said.
“Or prepared,” Paige replied, “in case you were caught.”
The projector switched on.
An image appeared on the wall.
It showed Grant entering the hotel two nights earlier with the woman in the green dress.
The timestamp was clear.
Lillian had claimed she met him in Room 814.
Then another image appeared.
Grant leaving the hotel alone.
A third image showed a second woman entering the same room twenty minutes later.
She wore a cream coat.
Her face was finally visible.
Paige stood so abruptly that her hospital blanket fell to the floor.
“That’s impossible.”
The woman was not Lillian.
May you like
She was not Celeste.
She was Paige.
