Chapter 8 - The Road to Pemaquid
The highway stretched north into the blackness of northern New England.
Rain began to fall again, heavy drops drumming against the windshield of the Volvo as the wipers swept back and forth in steady, hypnotic rhythms.
Ethan sat in the passenger seat, his hands resting tightly in his lap. He hadn't spoken since they crossed the Piscataqua River bridge into Maine.
Every time he looked at Claire, he saw a completely different person. The woman who had packed his lunch, who had ironed his shirts, who had smiled politely at corporate fundraisers—she was gone. In her place sat a stranger who had dismantled a hundred-million-dollar empire in less than forty-eight hours.
"Why did you bail me out?" Ethan finally broke the silence. His voice was hoarse, scratched raw by exhaustion.
Claire kept both hands at ten and two on the steering wheel. Her eyes remained locked on the dark asphalt ahead.
"Because if you're in federal custody, Marcus’s legal team will paint you as the sole mastermind," she said, her voice smooth and measured. "They'll argue you ran the entire embezzlement scheme through Natalie Pierce to hide your domestic assets before filing for divorce."
"And you care about saving me from prison?"
A bitter, dry laugh escaped Claire’s lips. "I don't care about saving you, Ethan. I care about the truth. Marcus Vance murdered my father. He paid a corrupt mechanic to cut the brake lines on Route 128, and he used your father to cover it up."
Ethan turned fully in his seat, staring at her profile in the dim dashboard light. "My father knew? He knew it wasn't an accident?"
Claire’s hands tightened slightly on the leather wheel.
"Charles Whitmore arrived at the crash site before the ambulance did," she said, each word landing like an iron weight. "He took the briefcase containing the revised partnership contracts right out of the burning car. My father was still breathing, Ethan. And your father walked away with the papers."
Ethan felt a wave of nausea wash over him. "How do you know that? Who told you that?"
"Arthur Vance," Claire answered quietly. "Three years ago, Arthur had a stroke. He thought he was dying. He called me to his bedside at Brigham and Women's Hospital and confessed everything. He gave me the mechanic's name. He gave me the account numbers."
"Three years ago..." Ethan whispered, his mind reeling. "You knew this for three years? And you stayed married to me? You slept in my bed? You cooked my dinners?"
Claire glanced at him for a fraction of a second. Her dark eyes reflected the green glow of the instrument panel.
"I needed the paper trail, Ethan. Real estate empires don't leave their murder weapons in desk drawers. They bury them in zoning variances, municipal bonds, and shell corporations. It took me three years to find the original ledger Charles Whitmore hid."
"Where is it?"
Claire signaled right, turning the Volvo off the highway onto a narrow, unlit coastal route bordered by towering black pines.
"In Pemaquid Point," she said. "At the cottage my father built before he died."
"Marcus knows about the cottage," Ethan said, a cold spike of panic shooting through his ribs. "His family used to visit in the summers."
"I know," Claire said. "That’s why he’s already there."
Ethan lunged toward the dashboard. "What? Claire, stop the car! You just said Marcus was arrested at Logan!"
"No," Claire replied calmly, not slowing down. "Natalie told you Marcus was arrested. Natalie works for me, Ethan. She didn't work for the DOJ. The DOJ doesn't know about Pemaquid."
Ethan stared at her, terror paralyzing his vocal cords. "What did you do?"
"Marcus didn't board a plane to Zurich," Claire said, her voice dropping into a chilling, absolute stillness. "He fled north in a rental car four hours ago because I sent him an anonymous message telling him the only surviving copy of the 2008 audit was locked in the safe at my father's cottage."
"You lured him there?" Ethan shouted, grabbing the door handle. "Claire, Marcus has armed men! He tried to kill us this morning on Beacon Street! You're walking into an execution!"
"No, Ethan," Claire said, pulling the car onto a gravel driveway that wound through the dense coastal fog toward the roar of the Atlantic ocean crashing against granite cliffs.
She killed the headlights. The car rolled to a silent halt beneath the shadow of a weathered cedar-shingle cottage overlooking the sea.
In the driveway ahead sat a black Mercedes SUV.
Its engine was still ticking as it cooled in the rain.
Claire reached beneath the driver’s seat and pulled out Charles Whitmore’s .38 revolver. She checked the cylinder, then turned to Ethan in the darkness.
May you like
"Marcus isn't here to execute me," she whispered, her eyes burning with a fierce, terrifying brilliance. "He’s here to sign a confession. And you're going to hold the pen."
***
