Chapter 4 - Shadows on Charlotte Avenue
I didn't sleep that night. I sat in my father’s old leather armchair in the study, watching the rain turn the grand gardens of the Belle Meade estate into a gray, churning swamp. By 4:00 AM, I had cleaned out my personal safe: three passports, bearer bonds, and a heavy ledger of cash reserves that I used for off-the-books terminal acquisitions.
At 7:00 AM, Walter Briggs was waiting by my vehicle. He didn't say a word as I tossed my duffel bag into the passenger seat. He just handed me a sealed manila envelope.
“What’s this?” I asked, keeping the engine idling.
“Miss Tiffany called her lawyers at dawn,” Walter said, his voice flat, devoid of its usual administrative pride. “They’re freezing the corporate accounts by noon. She’s filing for emergency receivership based on alleged domestic threats. If you want to find the girl, you need to look at the regional health system records before her legal team seals them.”
“Why are you telling me this, Walter? I thought you were her loyal soldier.”
Walter looked down at his polished shoes, then up at the rain-streaked windows of the grand house he had guarded for decades. “I worked for your father, Mr. Garrett. He built this company with sweat and diesel, not blackmail and shell corporations. Miss Tiffany forgot who owned the keys to the kingdom.”
I didn't thank him. I put the truck in gear and drove straight back into the heart of Nashville, heading toward the medical district on Charlotte Avenue.
The records office at St. Thomas West was quiet at this hour. Using a combination of old industry favors, cash bribes, and the kind of persuasive intimidation that came naturally to a man who controlled half the freight shipping lanes in Tennessee, I cornered the chief records administrator in his private office before morning rounds began.
“Megan Sullivan,” I said, dropping a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills onto his blotter. “Admitted fourteen months ago. Emergency premature delivery. Three infants.”
The administrator stared at the cash, swallowed hard, and pulled up a secure terminal. His fingers flew across the keyboard.
“The boys—Mason and Bryce—went home with the mother after three weeks in the NICU,” he muttered, his eyes darting back and forth across the screen. “The girl… Hazel. She had a congenital ventricular defect. She required an immediate pediatric cardiothoracic transfer.”
“To where?”
“A private recovery facility in Memphis. Funded by an anonymous donor trust.”
“What is the name of the trust?”
The administrator tapped another key, and a corporate registration document popped up on the monitor. My blood ran cold for the second time in twenty-four hours.
The trust was registered under *Sullivan-Briggs Holding Group*.
Tiffany hadn’t just hidden my daughter from me; she had used my own corporate subsidiaries to finance the private facility where Hazel was being kept, turning my own money into the very cage that separated me from my child.
May you like
I grabbed the printout from the tray, shoved the remaining cash across the desk, and walked out without looking back. My phone buzzed in my pocket—a text from an unknown number. It was a single address in East Memphis, followed by three words: *Don’t be late.*
TITLE: The Glass Alibi
