Chapter 9 - The Man Who Ordered the Storm
Police surrounded St. Agnes Church long before noon.
Charles arrived alone.
He looked exhausted.
Claire watched from behind the tinted windows of an unmarked vehicle.
Ortiz entered first.
Charles sat in the last pew.
“No wire?”
Ortiz smiled.
“You’re not in a position to negotiate.”
Charles looked toward Claire when she entered.
“I’m sorry.”
Claire stopped ten feet away.
“Did you order Michael’s death?”
Charles’s face collapsed.
“I sent that email.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
“You wrote ‘take care of the problem.’”
“I meant stop him from reaching Henry.”
“How?”
“Buy him off. Threaten him. Destroy the records.”
Claire stepped closer.
“And Richard decided to kill him?”
“I didn’t know until afterward.”
“Then why stay silent?”
Charles began crying.
“Because Richard showed me what he had done.”
Claire stared.
“What?”
“A video.”
Ortiz leaned forward.
“Of Michael’s death?”
Charles nodded.
The room changed.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t have it.”
“Who does?”
“Richard.”
Claire’s jaw tightened.
Charles wiped his face.
“Michael got onto his boat around nine. Richard had already damaged the fuel line and disabled the emergency radio.”
“We know.”
“That wasn’t what killed him.”
Claire froze.
Charles looked at Ethan.
“I’m sorry.”
“Say it.”
“Michael survived the boat failure.”
Nobody moved.
Charles continued.
“The Coast Guard report said the boat disappeared in the storm.”
Claire nodded slowly.
“That report was wrong?”
“The boat washed into a private inlet.”
“Then what?”
“Richard was waiting.”
Claire’s hand covered her mouth.
Charles whispered:
“Michael came ashore alive.”
Ethan stepped forward.
“What did Richard do?”
Charles couldn’t look at him.
“He killed him.”
The church was completely silent.
“How?”
Ortiz asked.
Charles looked sick.
“He hit Michael with an iron mooring hook.”
Claire turned away.
Ethan didn’t.
“Where is my dad?”
Charles whispered:
“Harbor Point.”
Claire spun back.
“The warehouse?”
“Under the old eastern foundation.”
The property Richard was desperate to sell.
Not simply because of money laundering.
Because Michael’s body was buried beneath it.
The $120 million sale included demolition rights.
Once the warehouse was destroyed and the land redeveloped, Michael Parker would disappear forever.
Claire finally understood.
Her attempted burial.
The hurried board vote.
The warehouse explosives.
Richard wasn’t beginning a cover-up.
He was finishing one.
Police excavated beneath Harbor Point that evening.
At 11:43 p.m., investigators found human remains.
A wedding ring remained around one finger.
Inside it were engraved two words.
Claire & Michael.
Claire sat in the police vehicle and cried without making a sound.
Ethan leaned against her.
For seven years, they had imagined Michael somewhere beneath the Chesapeake.
Now they knew he had spent all those years beneath concrete owned by his own company.
Ortiz approached them after midnight.
“There’s something else.”
Claire wiped her face.
“What?”
“The remains weren’t alone.”
Claire looked up.
“What do you mean?”
Ortiz took a breath.
“We found another grave.”
A woman.
Approximately fifty years old.
Buried several years after Michael.
A bracelet identified her as Marjorie Bell.
One of the names in Michael’s ledger.
The supposedly dead investor whose estate Richard had taken control of.
Claire stared toward the excavation lights.
Richard hadn’t just killed Michael.
May you like
He had developed a method.
And Claire had nearly become the third body beneath his empire.
