Chapter 10 - Parcel 17
There had been six bodies.
Not three.
Six bodies buried beneath an abandoned warehouse scheduled for demolition.
The construction crew uncovered the first remains at 5:40 one morning.
Arthur arrived before police.
So did the project attorney.
So did an unknown man from a private security company.
“You concealed human remains?” Clara asked.
Arthur looked sick.
“They told me the site had national-security implications.”
Cole almost laughed.
“And you believed them?”
“They showed credentials.”
“What agency?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t verify?”
“They knew things about my family.”
Arthur’s voice dropped.
“Things nobody should have known.”
Julian stared at his father.
“So you buried them again.”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
“We stopped construction for three days.”
“And then?”
“The remains disappeared.”
Cole stepped forward.
“Who took them?”
Arthur looked at him.
“I never knew.”
Clara thought about Serena.
“She arrived afterward.”
“Yes.”
“How soon?”
“Three weeks.”
“Recommended by whom?”
Arthur stared at the floor.
“A man named Warren Pike.”
Cole wrote the name.
“Who is he?”
“I thought he was a federal contractor.”
“Thought?”
“His number stopped working after Serena joined us.”
Clara walked toward the window.
“What did Serena do at East Harbor?”
“Everything,” Julian said.
“She became indispensable.”
Arthur nodded reluctantly.
“She helped recover delayed permits. Negotiated labor problems. Fixed audits before they became problems.”
“Meaning she controlled information.”
“Yes.”
Clara turned.
“And Reeve?”
Arthur looked at her.
“He knew nothing about East Harbor.”
“But he knew Julian was being exposed to something.”
Arthur’s silence answered.
Clara stepped closer.
“You met him in the garage.”
“He called me.”
“Why?”
“He said Julian’s test results suggested medication exposure.”
“And?”
“He threatened to report it.”
“To police?”
“To the medical board, police, everyone.”
“So what did you do?”
“Nothing.”
Cole laughed quietly.
“Your family doctor disappears after threatening to expose your son’s poisoning, and you did nothing?”
“I told him I would handle it.”
“How?”
“I confronted Teresa.”
Clara looked at him.
“You already knew she was giving Serena medication.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Julian’s expression hardened.
“How long?”
“Two weeks.”
“You knew for two weeks?”
“I thought Serena was administering tiny amounts.”
Julian stared at his father with disbelief.
“You let her poison me?”
Arthur suddenly shouted.
“I was trying to find out what she wanted!”
The monitors reacted to Julian’s rising heart rate.
Clara stepped between them.
“Enough.”
Arthur lowered his voice.
“She had photographs.”
“Of what?”
“The bodies.”
“From Parcel 17?”
“Yes.”
“She threatened you?”
“She said if I interfered, she would expose everything and destroy the company.”
Julian laughed.
“So you let her destroy me instead.”
Arthur looked at his son.
His face collapsed.
“I thought I could control it.”
Clara had heard that sentence many times in emergency rooms.
From drunk drivers.
Abusive husbands.
Parents who left children unattended.
People standing in the wreckage of consequences they had believed belonged to someone else.
Cole’s phone rang.
He listened.
Then looked toward Clara.
“We found Teresa.”
“Where?”
“A motel outside Harrisburg.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“And the silver case?”
“Gone.”
Arthur stood.
May you like
Cole continued.
“She says Serena took it.”
