Chapter 16 - Home
My mother, Diane, answered on the second ring.
“Sweetheart?”
“Mom, lock every door.”
Silence.
“What happened?”
“Do it now.”
My mother had spent twenty-two years married to a Marine.
She did not waste time asking questions twice.
I heard the deadbolt click.
“Done.”
“Call police.”
“Ashlynn.”
“Gregory may be coming.”
Another silence.
Then her voice changed.
“Understood.”
Naomi was already driving toward her house.
Police were notified.
I wanted to fly directly home, but investigators asked me to remain in Florida long enough to complete a formal interview.
Those six hours were the longest of my life.
Gregory never appeared at my mother’s house.
Instead, Naomi found an envelope taped beneath Diane’s mailbox.
Inside was my wedding ring.
I had left it in the ship’s cabin.
There was also a note.
You embarrassed me in front of my father.
Below it:
Come home alone and we finish this privately.
No location.
No time.
Just a threat designed to keep me guessing.
Then I remembered something.
Gregory’s safe.
My file.
Photographs of my old apartment.
My former military contacts.
My mother.
Naomi.
He had cataloged every place I might run.
But there was one place he would assume belonged entirely to him.
The Hartman penthouse in San Diego.
I called Elena.
“Do you still have the suite inventory?”
“Yes.”
“Was anything besides the bat missing?”
She checked.
Then paused.
“His passport.”
“What else?”
“Laptop.”
“Anything personal?”
Another pause.
“A brass key.”
I knew that key.
Gregory kept it on a hook inside our penthouse study.
It opened a locked cabinet I had never been allowed to touch.
He was going back for something.
I called federal investigators.
They obtained a warrant before I landed in California.
Naomi met me outside the building.
“You don’t have to go upstairs.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
“Because whatever he wants from that cabinet matters.”
Police entered first.
The penthouse was empty.
The study cabinet had been forced open.
Most of its contents were gone.
But Gregory had missed one envelope that had fallen behind the drawer.
I pulled it free.
Inside were photographs.
Not of Claire.
Not of Margaret.
Of me.
Taken during military service.
One photograph showed me training at Camp Pendleton.
On the back, someone had written a date.
Seven years before I met Gregory.
Below it were two words.
PRIMARY CANDIDATE.
Naomi stared at me.
“Ashlynn.”
I looked at the other photographs.
Howard Hartman had known who I was long before the corporate acquisition.
Long before Gregory.
Long before everything.
The marriage had not begun nine months earlier.
May you like
Someone had been watching me for years.
---
