Chapter 5 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Stay Silent
Raymond Cole was alive.
Barely.
Police found him behind the motel’s ice machine with a fractured wrist and blood running from his forehead.
His room had been destroyed.
The mattress was overturned.
Drawers had been emptied.
His laptop was gone.
But the attacker had missed one thing.
Raymond had hidden an old flip phone inside the toilet tank.
Detective Reyes found Sarah at the hospital at two in the morning.
“He wants to see you.”
Raymond looked twenty years older than his fifty-four years.
He stared at Sarah from the bed.
“You look like Ethan described you.”
Sarah stopped.
“You knew my husband?”
“Once.”
“When?”
“Five days before he died.”
Julian stood near the door.
Raymond noticed him.
“You too.”
Julian frowned.
“What about me?”
“He talked about you.”
Sarah sat beside the bed.
“Tell me what happened.”
Raymond swallowed.
“Mercer hired me to disable a sensor.”
“What sensor?”
“The brake pressure warning.”
“Why?”
“He said Mr. Sterling wanted to scare his wife.”
Sarah stared at him.
“Ethan would never do that.”
“I figured that out later.”
Raymond looked ashamed.
“I did the job in a parking garage.”
“Then who cut the line?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said another man came back.”
Raymond looked toward Julian again.
“I never saw his face.”
“But?”
“He wore a Vance Holdings security jacket.”
Julian’s expression hardened.
“That proves nothing. We had four hundred employees with those jackets.”
“I know.”
Raymond coughed.
“Ethan found me two days later.”
Sarah leaned closer.
“He knew?”
“He knew someone touched the car. He offered me money to tell him who hired me.”
“And did you?”
“I told him Mercer.”
“Then what?”
“He said he already suspected someone close to his mother.”
“Did he go to the police?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He said he needed proof first.”
Raymond looked at Sarah.
“He kept saying he had finally found something that could protect you and the boy.”
“What?”
“A recording.”
Sarah’s pulse jumped.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Raymond thought for a moment.
“He said something about a music box.”
Sarah frowned.
Then she remembered.
Ethan’s childhood room at the Sterling estate.
A wooden music box sat on his bookshelf.
It had belonged to Ethan’s father.
He once told Sarah nobody knew how to open the hidden compartment except him.
Sarah stood.
“We need to go to the house.”
Julian shook his head.
“Victoria’s estate is being searched.”
“No.”
Sarah looked at the brass key in her hand.
“She keeps the police away from Ethan’s room. She always has.”
Reyes entered.
“We can get a warrant.”
“How long?”
“Hours.”
Sarah checked the time.
2:17 a.m.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
She opened the message.
A photograph appeared.
Ethan’s old bedroom.
The shelves had been ripped apart.
The music box sat open on the floor.
Empty.
Under the photograph were six words.
YOU WERE TOO SLOW, SARAH.
Julian read over her shoulder.
“Victoria.”
Sarah shook her head.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Victoria never calls me Sarah.”
Julian looked at her.
“What does she call you?”
Sarah stared at the screen.
“The maid.”
Another message arrived.
May you like
THIS IS BIGGER THAN VICTORIA.
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