Chapter 2 - The Wife Daniel Buried
Grace was taken to Northwestern Memorial under police protection.
Daniel rode with her.
Lily stayed with Daniel’s sister Melissa, who had arrived minutes after the police.
Marcus was taken separately for questioning.
Not arrested.
Not yet.
Daniel hated that.
But Detective Teresa Caldwell explained it plainly.
“Finding someone locked in a room establishes a crime happened. It doesn’t automatically establish who committed every part of it.”
“He admitted knowing she was there.”
“We have your statement.”
“He said she was going to destroy the family.”
“We have that too.”
Daniel stared through the hospital window.
“Then arrest him.”
Teresa looked at him.
“I understand what you want.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I understand exactly.”
Her voice stayed calm.
“And if I rush this because you’re angry, your brother’s defense attorney will thank me.”
Daniel sat down.
He hated her.
Which meant she was probably right.
At 2:17 a.m., a doctor cleared Grace for extended questioning.
She had dehydration, bruising, a sprained ankle, and mild hypothermia.
She had been beneath the mansion for approximately thirty-six hours.
Not five years.
That answer only created another question.
Where had she been the rest of the time?
Daniel sat beside her.
Grace looked older.
Of course she did.
Five years had passed.
There was a thin scar near her right temple that had not existed before.
He wanted to touch it.
He did not.
“You really thought I died?”
Her voice cracked.
Daniel looked at her.
“I buried you.”
Grace closed her eyes.
“There was a body?”
“Yes.”
She opened them.
“What?”
“The state police identified you.”
“How?”
“Dental records.”
Grace stared.
“Daniel, I never had dental work in Minnesota.”
His body became still.
“What?”
“My dentist was in Chicago until we married.”
“I know.”
“You moved me to Dr. Peterson after Lily was born.”
“Yes.”
“I had one cleaning there.”
Daniel remembered.
Grace hated dentists.
“There wouldn’t have been enough records to identify badly damaged remains.”
His stomach turned.
Marcus had handled communications with the funeral home because Daniel had been barely functional.
“Who spoke to the dentist?” Grace asked.
Daniel already knew.
“Marcus.”
She started crying.
Detective Teresa leaned forward.
“Mrs. Harrington, we need to understand what happened five years ago.”
Grace took a long breath.
The night of the crash, Grace had not been driving home from a charity event as Daniel believed.
She had been meeting an accountant.
Privately.
“Why?”
Grace looked at Daniel.
“Because I found money missing.”
“From where?”
“The Harrington Family Trust.”
Daniel stared.
Marcus had managed the trust’s administrative office for twelve years.
Grace continued.
“At first I thought it was accounting noise.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred thousand.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“Then?”
“More.”
“How much?”
“Eventually?”
She swallowed.
“Almost eleven million dollars.”
Daniel stood.
“No.”
Grace looked at him.
“I found transfers through consulting firms.”
“Marcus?”
“I didn’t know then.”
“But you suspected?”
“I suspected someone inside the family office.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
That hurt.
Grace looked away.
“Because you and Marcus were inseparable.”
Daniel flinched.
“I was your husband.”
“Yes.”
“And I was scared.”
“What did I ever do to make you afraid to tell me?”
“Nothing.”
Her answer came quickly.
“Then why?”
“Because three weeks before the crash, I mentioned an accounting discrepancy.”
“To me?”
“No.”
“To Marcus.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Grace continued.
“He laughed.”
Then later, someone entered her home office.
Nothing stolen.
Just disturbed.
A drawer open.
Documents moved.
Her computer logged into.
She began keeping copies outside the house.
Then she found something stranger.
An old amendment to Daniel’s father’s estate.
Daniel frowned.
“What amendment?”
Grace looked toward Teresa.
Then back.
“Lily inherited controlling beneficial rights in Harrington Holdings.”
Daniel stared.
“What?”
“When your father died, you believed the voting trust passed to you.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not exactly true.”
Grace explained.
Daniel held authority as temporary trustee.
But the underlying controlling interest was created for the first grandchild.
Lily.
The arrangement would remain largely dormant until her seventh birthday.
Then independent trustees were required to review every transaction made on her behalf.
Lily was six.
Seven months away from turning seven.
Daniel felt cold.
“If Marcus stole from the trust—”
“The review would expose it.”
Grace nodded.
“That’s what I realized five years ago.”
“But Lily was one.”
“Yes.”
“Why would he need to act then?”
“Because I found it.”
Silence.
Grace met the accountant outside Minneapolis.
On the drive back, a black SUV followed her.
Near a rural road, it forced her vehicle toward a barrier.
Grace remembered impact.
Glass.
Cold.
Then waking in a farmhouse two days later.
An elderly couple had found her after she crawled from the wreck before the car caught fire.
“What about the body?”
“I don’t know.”
Teresa wrote quickly.
Grace had a severe concussion.
No identification.
Her purse was gone.
Her memory was fragmented for weeks.
Then came the part Daniel could barely understand.
“Why didn’t you come home?”
Grace started crying.
“Because someone sent me photographs.”
“What photographs?”
“You and Marcus.”
Daniel froze.
“Outside the hospital.”
“Why would that stop you?”
“There was a message.”
“What message?”
Grace closed her eyes.
Daniel knows. Stay dead if you want Lily alive.
Daniel felt the room tilt.
“No.”
“I believed you were involved.”
“No.”
“I know that now.”
He stood.
“You thought I tried to kill you?”
Grace cried harder.
“I had a head injury. I didn’t know who to trust.”
“You left Lily with me.”
“I watched you.”
“What?”
“From a distance.”
His grief became anger.
“You watched us for five years?”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“Months.”
Grace eventually contacted a victim-protection organization under another identity.
She moved repeatedly.
For almost a year, she believed Daniel might have known about the attack.
Then she saw something online.
A photograph from a memorial fundraiser.
Daniel beside a portrait of Grace.
He looked destroyed.
“That proved nothing.”
“I know.”
“But I started investigating.”
Slowly.
Quietly.
Grace hired a retired investigator.
Over years, they found evidence that the threatening photographs had been printed by a contractor connected to one of Marcus’s shell companies.
Three weeks ago, Grace finally became convinced Daniel had not been involved.
“So you came back.”
“Yes.”
“Why not call?”
“I tried.”
“What?”
“Four times.”
Daniel’s stomach sank.
“When?”
“Last month.”
His assistant had told him someone claiming to be Grace was making disturbing calls.
Daniel assumed it was a scam.
He never listened to the recordings.
“Who told you about the calls?” Grace asked.
He already knew.
“Marcus.”
The room went silent.
Grace returned to the mansion two days earlier because she remembered something from before the crash.
A hidden passage Daniel’s father had once shown her during renovations.
She believed original trust files had been stored beneath the house.
She entered while Daniel was at work.
Before she could leave—
Marcus found her.
“He was waiting.”
Daniel stared.
“You think he knew you were coming?”
“Yes.”
“He locked you below?”
Grace nodded.
“He said he needed time to fix everything.”
“And then?”
“He left.”
“For thirty-six hours?”
“He came back once.”
“What did he do?”
Her eyes filled.
“He asked where the copies were.”
Daniel clenched his fists.
“What copies?”
“Evidence.”
She looked directly at him.
“I told him Lily had them.”
Daniel went completely still.
“What?”
“It was a lie.”
Relief.
Then Grace whispered:
“But Marcus believed me.”
Daniel’s blood turned cold again.
May you like
His daughter was now part of the threat.
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