Chapter 11 - WHAT GRANT DID
The sniper missed Ortiz by inches.
Ross fired toward the window and tried to run. One of Ortiz’s trusted officers tackled him.
Tessa and I crawled behind a steel cabinet.
Malcolm disappeared through an emergency door.
By sunrise, federal agents had the building.
They found the Hartford records.
They found payments.
They found falsified death reports.
And buried in a maintenance archive, they found a security video from the night Amelia died.
Grant’s SUV followed her car out of the Mercer Foundation garage.
Another camera caught him at a service station twenty minutes later, buying a disposable phone.
Phone records placed that device near the intersection where the delivery truck crossed the center line.
The truck driver had not simply been drunk.
He had been paid.
I watched the evidence in a federal conference room while Noah slept in my arms.
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I held him tighter.
Tessa sat across from me.
“Amelia knew she was in danger.”
“And I didn’t.”
“She was trying to protect you.”
“She died protecting all of us.”
Ortiz entered.
“Grant’s car was found near Logan.”
“Did he fly out?”
“No. He left something inside.”
She placed a photograph on the table.
It showed Noah being carried from the secure apartment.
My heart stopped.
“That’s impossible.”
The photo had been taken that morning.
I stood.
“Where is my son?”
Ortiz called the detail.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
We ran.
At the secure apartment, the door stood open.
One officer lay unconscious in the kitchen.
The pediatric nurse was gone.
Noah’s blanket was on the floor.
Tessa picked it up with shaking hands.
My phone rang.
Grant.
“Dad always said you’d trade anything for the baby,” he said.
I could barely speak.
“What do you want?”
“The chip. The original audio. And Tessa.”
“You touch my son—”
May you like
Grant laughed.
“Elliot, I already have.”
