Chapter 8 - NorthcoveThe photographs changed the case.
This was no longer something Corinne had decided on the cliff.
Sadie had been watched.
Planned around.
Studied.
Some photographs showed mundane things.
Sadie leaving school.
Sadie entering Grant’s car.
Sadie walking with Corinne outside the lodge.
Others focused on schedules.
Her weekly piano lesson.
Her riding class.
The route between Grant’s house and Mercer Ridge.
One photo showed Sadie standing near the Granite Crown overlook during a family picnic six months earlier.
On the back, someone had written:
She freezes near heights.
Grant saw the handwriting.
Reid’s.
He sat inside the sheriff’s conference room with both hands pressed against his temples.
Mara stood beside him.
Detective Ortiz watched quietly.
“How long?” Grant asked.
“Earliest photograph is eight months old.”
Grant looked up.
“Corinne and I have been married twenty-two months.”
Ortiz nodded.
“Motive likely developed after marriage.”
“Or before.”
Mara’s voice was quiet.
Grant turned.
“What?”
Mara placed an employment record on the table.
“Corinne worked for Halberd Financial before she met you.”
“I know.”
“Reid consulted for Halberd during the same period.”
Grant stared at her.
“They knew each other?”
“Possibly.”
Grant’s chair scraped backward.
“Corinne told me she first met Reid at our wedding.”
Ortiz folded her arms.
“Then that was a lie.”
Mara continued.
“I found a conference attendee list from six years ago.”
Two names appeared.
Corinne Vale.
Her maiden name.
Reid Calder.
Grant stared.
“They didn’t just know each other.”
“No.”
“They hid it.”
“Yes.”
Grant stood and walked toward the wall.
Every memory rearranged itself.
Corinne laughing when Grant introduced her to Reid at the wedding.
Corinne, this is the man who keeps me from going bankrupt.
Reid smiling.
Then I guess I should thank you for keeping him sane.
They had pretended.
Right in front of him.
Grant turned.
“Was she planted?”
Mara did not answer quickly enough.
His face twisted.
“My marriage?”
“We don’t know.”
“Was my entire marriage part of this?”
Ortiz said, “We follow evidence, not possibilities.”
Grant looked toward the file of photographs.
“My daughter was pushed off a cliff by the woman I married after being watched by the man I trusted with my company.”
His voice cracked.
“I think we’re past possibilities.”
At the guest cottage, Sadie was learning to sleep without waking every forty minutes.
Grant had put a chair beside her bed.
The first two nights, he slept there.
On the third night, Sadie woke and found him still awake.
“You don’t have to stare at me.”
He smiled weakly.
“I know.”
“You look creepy.”
“That’s fair.”
She shifted carefully because of her ribs.
“Is Corinne going to jail?”
“I hope so.”
Sadie frowned.
“You hope?”
“Police have rules.”
“That’s dumb.”
“Sometimes.”
“Did she do bad enough?”
Grant swallowed.
“Yes.”
Sadie watched him.
“Are you sad?”
“About what?”
“Her.”
Grant looked toward the floor.
“Yes.”
Sadie seemed surprised.
“Even after what she did?”
“I’m sad because I thought she was someone else.”
Sadie considered this.
“That doesn’t mean you want her back.”
“No.”
“Okay.”
Grant looked at her.
“Are you angry with me?”
Sadie did not answer immediately.
“A little.”
“You’re allowed.”
“You always said she loved me.”
“I was wrong.”
“You said we should give her a chance.”
“I was wrong.”
“You said she only got strict because she cared.”
Grant closed his eyes.
“I was wrong.”
Sadie stared at him.
He forced himself not to explain.
Not to defend.
Not to say Corinne had fooled him too.
His daughter deserved the truth without his excuses.
Finally Sadie whispered, “I kept trying harder so she’d like me.”
Grant’s eyes filled.
“I’m sorry.”
“She never did.”
Grant took her hand.
“That was her failure.”
Sadie’s lip trembled.
“Not mine?”
“No.”
The next morning, Mara arrived with a file that changed everything again.
She placed it on Grant’s kitchen table.
“Northcove’s ownership structure.”
Grant opened it.
Three shell companies.
Two trusts.
One limited-liability corporation registered in Delaware.
At the bottom was a beneficial ownership disclosure obtained through investigators.
Reid Calder owned forty percent.
A private investor owned thirty percent.
Grant pointed.
“Who owns the rest?”
Mara turned the page.
Thirty percent belonged to:
C. Vale Holdings LLC.
Grant stared.
Corinne’s maiden name.
The sale of Granite Crown was not merely something Corinne wanted to facilitate.
She personally stood to make millions.
Sadie’s death would give Grant control of the shares.
Corinne planned to manipulate her grieving husband into approving the sale.
And then she and Reid would buy Grant’s property from him at a manufactured discount.
Grant stared at the paperwork.
“She wasn’t trying to join my family.”
Mara said nothing.
“She was trying to acquire it.”
Before Mara could answer, Grant’s phone rang.
Ortiz.
Her voice was urgent.
“Reid Calder is gone.”
Grant stood.
“What do you mean gone?”
“He failed to appear for questioning.”
“Where is he?”
“We don’t know.”
May you like
Ortiz paused.
“And Corinne disappeared from her attorney’s office twenty minutes ago.”
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