Chapter 15 - Grant Runs
Grant cut off his electronic monitor at 4:12 a.m.
By 4:30, law enforcement had an alert.
By five, his abandoned SUV was found at a commuter rail station outside Chicago.
His passport had been surrendered.
His known accounts were frozen.
But Grant had spent years building shell companies and hidden reserves.
Investigators believed he was attempting to reach Canada under false identification.
Eleanor learned about the escape from Lena.
Her first question was about Oliver.
“Does Grant know where we live?”
“Your Colorado location was protected.”
“Was?”
“You returned to Chicago yesterday.”
Eleanor’s blood went cold.
“How did you know?”
“Your counsel notified the court.”
“Who else had access?”
“Limited parties.”
“Grant?”
“No.”
“Camille?”
“Yes.”
Eleanor stood.
“I’m taking Oliver somewhere else.”
“That may be wise, but do not improvise. We’ll arrange security.”
Oliver sensed something immediately.
“Is Mom coming?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Eleanor hesitated.
“Grant left where he was supposed to stay.”
Oliver’s face changed.
“Is he coming here?”
“We don’t think so.”
“That means maybe.”
Eleanor sat beside him.
“Police are handling it.”
Oliver stared at the floor.
“He knows about Dad’s box.”
“Yes.”
“He was scared of it.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe there’s something else.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
Oliver frowned, trying to remember.
“At Uncle Stephen’s apartment, Grant asked Mom if Dad kept copies anywhere else.”
“Okay.”
“Mom said no.”
“And?”
“Grant said, ‘What about the lake house?’”
Eleanor went still.
Adrian’s lake house.
An old property in Wisconsin the family rarely used.
It had been sold six months earlier.
Or supposedly sold.
Eleanor immediately called Lena.
Within an hour, investigators checked property records.
The house had transferred to an LLC during estate restructuring.
The LLC traced to the Vale Family Foundation.
Then to Grant.
He had never sold it.
He had moved it into an entity he controlled.
A search team headed north.
They were too late.
The house had been entered.
A basement safe stood open.
Documents littered the floor.
Security cameras had been disabled.
But Grant had made a mistake.
He assumed the property had no active alarm.
A motion sensor in an upstairs hallway had transmitted one image before being smashed.
Grant.
Alive.
Wearing a dark winter jacket.
Time stamp: 9:41 a.m.
He had driven north instead of toward Canada.
“What was he looking for?” Lena asked Eleanor.
“I don’t know.”
Adrian used the lake house as a retreat.
He wrote there.
Stored old tax files.
Kept family photographs.
Lena asked, “Did he have another safe?”
“Only the basement one.”
Investigators cataloged the contents.
Most were useless.
Old leases.
Insurance records.
Business correspondence.
Then an officer found a narrow wooden box behind a bookshelf.
It had been forced open.
Empty.
Except for one folded note.
Written by Adrian.
Grant—if you found this, then you proved me right.
Lena almost laughed.
Adrian had known his former friend well.
Below the first line:
The original authorization ledger is not here. I gave it to the only person you consistently underestimate.
No name.
Grant had fled with the note.
Or perhaps photographed it.
Either way, now he would be trying to determine whom Adrian meant.
Eleanor.
Camille.
A lawyer.
An accountant.
Then Oliver said, “Me.”
The adults stared at him.
“What?” Eleanor asked.
Oliver was sitting at the kitchen counter under police protection.
“Dad gave me something at the lake house.”
Eleanor’s pulse accelerated.
“When?”
“Before he died.”
“What?”
“A book.”
“What book?”
Oliver shrugged.
“A boring one.”
“Where is it?”
“At our house.”
Camille’s Chicago home.
Currently sealed in part because of the investigation.
“What kind of book?”
“Ships.”
Eleanor almost laughed from nerves.
“Why would the ledger be in a book?”
“I don’t know.”
Oliver thought.
“Dad said nobody steals boring books.”
Lena contacted the Chicago team.
They searched Oliver’s bedroom.
No ship book.
His shelves had been packed and reorganized after Adrian’s death.
Eleanor called Camille’s attorney.
Within an hour Camille joined a monitored call.
“The ship book?” she asked.
“You know it?” Lena said.
“Yes. Adrian gave it to Oliver.”
“Where is it?”
Camille closed her eyes.
“I donated it.”
Eleanor stood.
“You what?”
“It was damaged.”
“When?”
“Last summer.”
“Where?”
“A charity warehouse.”
Oliver looked stricken.
“Dad gave me that.”
Camille’s face crumpled on the screen.
“I know.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Ollie—”
“You throw away everything from Dad.”
The call ended early.
Investigators traced the donation.
The warehouse had distributed books to multiple secondhand shops.
Thousands of items.
Grant may have known the same.
For the next thirty-six hours, police searched likely resale locations.
No ledger.
No Grant.
Then Marcus Reed received a phone call at Silver Crest.
It came from an unknown Chicago number.
“Dr. Reed?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Aaron Patel. I own a used bookstore.”
Marcus frowned.
“I think I have something that belongs to Oliver Vale.”
Marcus went still.
“How did you get my number?”
“There’s a note inside the book.”
“What note?”
“It says if the book is ever found away from Oliver, contact the doctor who taught him that adults can be wrong.”
Marcus sat down.
Adrian could not have written that.
He had died before Marcus met Oliver.
“Who wrote the note?”
“I don’t know.”
Marcus understood.
Camille.
At some point after Oliver’s hospitalization, she had remembered the book.
And before telling investigators she donated it, she had apparently gone looking.
“Mr. Patel, don’t touch anything else.”
“Why?”
“Call the police.”
A pause.
“I already did.”
Marcus stood.
“What book is it?”
Aaron read the title.
Great Ships of the Atlantic.
And taped inside the back cover was a thin paper ledger containing handwritten account numbers, initials, dates, and authorization codes.
The original record Grant had spent eighteen months trying to destroy.
There was only one problem.
May you like
Aaron had called because someone else had contacted the store twenty minutes earlier asking about the same book.
Grant Harlow.
