Chapter 8 - SOMEBODY WAS STILL FOLLOWING THEM
Ryan closed the curtains instantly.
“Get away from the windows.”
Maya pulled Oliver toward the interior wall.
Claire grabbed her phone.
“Call Ortiz.”
Ryan already was.
Within ten minutes, hotel security had locked the floor.
Police searched the building.
No photographer was found.
But the image had been taken from a parking garage across the street.
Detective Ortiz studied Maya’s phone.
“Could be Ross.”
Ryan’s anger sharpened.
“He worked for my mother. Find him.”
“We are.”
“Not fast enough.”
Ortiz looked at him.
“I understand you’re angry.”
“No, Detective. I don’t think you do.”
Ryan pointed toward Oliver.
“That man helped install a camera in my child’s bedroom. Now someone is photographing my family through a hotel window.”
Ortiz didn’t flinch.
“And if you go after him yourself, you make my job harder.”
Ryan said nothing.
She lowered her voice.
“Protect your family by staying with them.”
That hit home.
Ryan looked at Maya.
For years, he had believed protection meant solving problems.
Controlling outcomes.
Making calls.
Using money.
Tonight protection meant not leaving.
He sat beside Oliver.
“Daddy stay?”
Ryan pulled him close.
“Daddy stays.”
At midnight, Ortiz called again.
They had found Ross’s SUV abandoned near the Whitmore estate.
The gates were unlocked.
Security systems disabled.
Ryan felt a surge of dread.
“My mother is there.”
“We’re checking.”
“What about the staff?”
“Most were sent home this afternoon.”
Claire looked up.
“She’s destroying evidence.”
Ortiz didn’t confirm it.
She didn’t have to.
Police entered the estate at 12:41 a.m.
In Evelyn’s study, they found a fireplace burning despite the warm summer night.
Boxes sat beside it.
Documents had already been destroyed.
But not everything.
A housekeeper named Nora had hidden one box before leaving.
She had worked for the Whitmores for twenty-seven years.
And for the first time, she agreed to speak.
The following morning, Ryan listened to her recorded statement.
Nora’s hands trembled in the video.
“Mrs. Whitmore told us Mrs. Maya was unstable.”
Ortiz asked, “Did you believe her?”
“At first.”
“What changed?”
“I heard Master Oliver crying yesterday.”
Nora looked down.
“Mrs. Whitmore told me not to go upstairs.”
“Why?”
“She said Maya needed to be allowed to ‘show her true nature.’”
Ryan’s face hardened.
Nora continued.
“Then Mr. Ross came downstairs and said the camera was recording.”
Ortiz leaned forward.
“What happened next?”
“I heard something break.”
Nora began crying.
“I wanted to go help.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Mrs. Whitmore has destroyed people for less.”
Ryan looked away.
Fear.
That was his mother’s real fortune.
Not money.
Fear.
Ortiz asked, “What was in the box you saved?”
Nora looked toward someone off camera.
An officer placed a cardboard box on the table.
Inside were prescription bottles.
Copies of Maya’s medical records.
Ryan’s old therapy notes.
Claire’s psychiatric reports.
And six unopened emergency inhalers prescribed for Oliver.
Ryan stopped the recording.
Six.
His mother had access to six inhalers while Oliver gasped for breath.
At the bottom of the box was a handwritten list.
Four names had checkmarks beside them.
Maya Whitmore.
Claire Whitmore.
Graham Price.
Calvin Ross.
A fifth name sat underneath.
RYAN WHITMORE.
Beside Ryan’s name, Evelyn had written only two words.
May you like
FINAL PHASE.
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