Chapter 13 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPHThe photograph arrived the next morning.
No return address.
Inside the envelope was a picture of Richard Bennett standing beside a woman Claire had never seen.
Taken twenty-two years earlier.
On the back:
ASK MARGARET WHAT SHE STOLE FROM HER.
Ethan drove to his mother’s house.
Claire went with him.
Margaret saw the photograph and sat down.
“Her name was Evelyn Shaw.”
Ethan stared.
“You said there wasn’t another woman.”
“There wasn’t an affair.”
“Then who was she?”
Margaret looked ashamed.
“Your father’s business partner.”
Richard and Evelyn had started a small development company before Bennett Urban Development existed.
Evelyn had designed a community-housing model.
Richard provided financing.
Then the partnership collapsed.
“Why?”
Margaret whispered:
“Because your father took her work.”
Claire went cold.
Ethan looked physically ill.
“What do you mean, took?”
“He used her redevelopment model to secure his first major municipal contract.”
“Did she sue?”
“She tried.”
“But?”
“Your father had the money. Lawyers. Connections.”
Ethan stood.
“My company exists because he stole from someone?”
Margaret cried.
“Partly.”
Claire suddenly understood.
The anonymous threats.
The Tacoma project.
Affordable housing.
History repeating itself.
“Where is Evelyn now?”
Margaret looked at her.
“She died twelve years ago.”
“Children?”
One.
A son.
Caleb Shaw.
Detective Ortiz found him within hours.
Forty-one years old.
Construction consultant.
Recently returned to Washington.
And his company had unsuccessfully bid on subcontracting work for Tacoma.
Ethan wanted to confront him.
Claire refused.
“You are not walking into a suspected arsonist’s house.”
“I wasn’t planning to—”
“You absolutely were.”
“I was considering a conversation.”
“With your jaw?”
“My jaw doesn’t converse.”
“It threatens.”
Despite everything, Ethan smiled.
Ortiz questioned Caleb.
He denied involvement.
Then provided an alibi.
At the exact time of the explosion, Caleb had been speaking at a construction conference in Spokane.
Hundreds of witnesses.
Claire frowned when Ortiz told them.
“So someone wants us looking at him.”
“Possibly.”
“Who?”
Ortiz placed another photograph on the table.
Security footage from the Tacoma site.
The hooded figure had made one mistake.
A tattoo was visible on his wrist.
A black compass.
Ethan recognized it.
His face changed.
Claire noticed.
“You know him.”
Ethan did not answer quickly enough.
“Ethan.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
He looked at Ortiz.
Then Claire.
“My former chief operating officer.”
Claire stared.
“Marcus?”
“No.”
Ethan shook his head.
“Before Marcus.”
His voice became quiet.
“Adrian Cole.”
Claire had heard the name once.
A man Ethan fired eleven years earlier.
May you like
A man who had threatened to destroy Bennett Urban Development.
And apparently had waited more than a decade to try.
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