Chapter 1 - THE GARAGE DOOR WAS ALREADY OPEN
Claire Dawson was eight months pregnant when her husband kicked her phone across the garage floor.
It skidded beneath the workbench.
Grant stood over her in a black shirt, holding a heated iron bar with both hands. The tip glowed dull orange beneath the fluorescent garage lights.
Claire had fallen beside the rear tire of their SUV. One arm covered her belly.
“I’ll erase you and that baby tonight,” Grant said, lowering the bar until heat shimmered above the concrete beside her. “Then everything you own becomes mine.”
His mother, Evelyn, stood near the workbench in a cream suit, smoking with the garage door halfway open.
“Finish it before she gives birth and ruins our inheritance.”
Claire stared at her.
That sentence frightened her more than the iron.
Inheritance.
Grant had screamed about money before. He had complained about Claire’s company, her father’s trust, the Dublin house she bought before their marriage.
But Evelyn had never said the quiet part aloud.
Claire twisted when Evelyn grabbed her hair, then shoved her backward into the workbench. Wrenches and sockets crashed onto the floor.
Grant seized Claire’s wrist.
She kicked a rolling toolbox into his knees.
He staggered.
Red and blue light flooded the open garage.
Claire crawled toward the driveway.
“The neighbor heard you,” she said. “The police heard enough.”
Grant lunged after her.
Two Dublin officers rushed inside, drove him against the workbench, and took the iron bar away.
Evelyn grabbed the phone Claire had knocked from Grant’s pocket.
“Drop it!” an officer shouted. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s still recording.”
The screen lit in his hand.
A woman’s photograph filled it.
Claire knew the face.
Natalie Price.
The woman Grant had sworn was “just his business controller.”
May you like
Grant looked at the screen.
For the first time that night, he seemed more afraid of Natalie than the police.
