Walking down the hall, flanked by two burly men in black tactical gear, was my husband, Julian.
He looked furious. His tie was loosened, his face flushed with rage. In his right hand, he held his cell phone—the burner phone app open on the screen, showing my location tracking signal.
He had tracked the phone I had stolen from his desk.
“Check every room!” Julian’s voice boomed down the corridor, echoing like thunder. “If she’s in here, do not let her leave this building alive!”
Panic seized me like a physical blow. I turned back to Sarah, whose face was pale with terror.
“He’s here,” I whispered, my voice trembling violently.
“Go!” Sarah begged, tears spilling down her face as she pushed my hand away. “Save yourself and your baby! There’s a laundry chute in the utility closet behind the bed! It leads to the alley behind the building! Go!”
“I’m not leaving you!” I cried, pulling at her leather restraints.
“You can’t carry me!” Sarah screamed, pointing to the wall. “If he catches you here, he will kill you both! Get out! Bring the police back for me!”
The footsteps outside stopped right in front of Room 108.
I heard the heavy rattle of keys against the door handle.
I squeezed Sarah’s hand one last time, turned around, and dove into the narrow utility closet at the back of the room. I squeezed my pregnant body inside, pulling the wooden door shut just as the main lock clicked open.
Through the wooden slats of the closet door, I watched Julian step into the room.
He stood over Sarah’s bed, his face twisted into a grotesque, murderous snarl. Gone was the polished, loving husband. Standing in his place was a cold-blooded killer.
“Where is she, Sarah?” Julian demanded, grabbing his sister by her throat. “Where is my wife? I know she came here!”
Sarah spat directly into his face. “She knows everything, Julian! She knows you’re a thief! She knows you’re a monster!”
Julian wiped his face, his eyes flashing with psychopathic fury. He pulled a syringe filled with clear liquid from his jacket pocket.
“It doesn't matter what she knows,” Julian hissed, raising the needle toward Sarah’s IV line. “By midnight tonight, both of my sweet girls will be gone. You’ll finally die of cardiac arrest, and Claire will suffer a tragic, fatal complication from her pregnancy back in Atlanta. And I will walk away with every single dollar.”
My blood ran cold. I couldn't watch him kill her. I couldn't let him win.
I didn't hesitate. I threw my weight against the back panel of the utility closet. The rotten wood gave way, and I tumbled backward into the darkness of the laundry chute.
I slid down the metallic, narrow tunnel, screaming as the metal scraped against my arms and back, until I burst through a plastic flap at the bottom, crashing into a pile of dirty linen in the dark basement garage.
I didn't stop to catch my breath. I scrambled to my feet, clutching my stomach, and sprinted out through the open loading dock bay into the pouring Washington rain.
I ran through the muddy alley, my shoes soaking wet, my lungs burning, until I reached my rental sedan. My trembling hands struggled to insert the key, but I finally unlocked the door, threw myself into the driver's seat, and slammed the lock button down.
I started the engine, slammed my foot on the accelerator, and peeled out into the street, spraying rainwater into the air.
As I sped onto the highway toward Seattle, I pulled out my phone and dialed the only person in the world I could trust.
Marcus Vance.
Marcus was my late father’s top corporate litigation attorney, a former federal prosecutor, and a man who had known me since I was six years old.
“Claire?” Marcus answered on the second ring, his tone sharp with concern. “Where are you? I’ve been trying to reach you all day. Julian called my office three hours ago asking if you had contacted me about your trust fund.”
“Marcus… listen to me,” I sobbed, struggling to keep the car steady on the slick highway. “I’m in Washington State. Julian is trying to kill me. He faked his sister’s death ten years ago. He’s been holding her hostage in an illegal facility in Tacoma, stealing my inheritance, and poisoning my vitamins!”
There was a long, heavy silence on the other end of the line.
“Claire,” Marcus said, his voice dropping into a terrifyingly serious register. “Pull over right now. Take a deep breath and tell me everything.”
For the next twenty minutes, as I pulled into a well-lit gas station parking lot off I-5, I laid out every single detail. The burner phone. The $8,500 monthly transfers. Officer Jackson outside L'Atelier. Room 108. Sarah’s forty-million-dollar inheritance. The compounded vitamin pills in my pocket.
When I finished, Marcus let out a long, heavy breath.
“Claire,” he said softly. “I need you to listen to me very carefully. You cannot go back to Atlanta. You cannot go to a hotel. Julian has access to private security contractors and corrupted law enforcement contacts—including Officer Jackson, who I just checked on. Jackson is under internal investigation for taking bribes from shell companies linked to Julian.”
“What about Sarah?” I cried. “He had a syringe, Marcus! He was going to inject her IV!”
“I’m already calling the FBI Special Agent-in-Charge in Seattle,” Marcus ordered. “I worked with him on a fraud task force three years ago. I will have a federal SWAT team raiding that facility in Tacoma within forty-five minutes. But you need to secure the hard evidence against Julian right now.”