Chapter 6 - The Spider's WebThe penthouse at the Carlyle Hotel was warm and dry, smelling of white lilies and polished silver. I had relocated my operations there for the night, leaving the townhouse under armed surveillance to ensure Grant couldn't attempt a break-in.
Elena Rossi arrived at 7:00 PM, shaking the raindrops from her umbrella. She wore a sharp charcoal pantsuit and carried an expanding legal accordion file that looked heavy enough to sink a boat.
"It gets dirtier, Claire," Elena said, setting the file on the glass coffee table. "Sabrina Cole isn't her real name."
I paused, holding a porcelain cup of Earl Grey midway to my lips. "Explain."
"Her legal name is Sabrina Kowalski," Elena said, pulling out a laminated copy of a Florida state driver’s license. "Six years ago, she was involved in a corporate extortion scheme targeting a real estate developer in Palm Beach. She operated under the name Sabrina Vance—no relation to Daniel, thankfully. She targets mid-level executive men with wealthy wives or high-net-worth commercial lines. She maneuvers herself into executive assistant roles, becomes indispensable, starts an affair, and then persuades the target to siphon assets out of the marriage before a planned split."
"A professional," I whispered, the puzzle pieces clicking together with terrifying clarity.
"A predator," Elena corrected. "Grant was the perfect mark. He had massive ego, massive insecurity about your family's superior wealth, and total executive authority over a company backed by your family trusts. Sabrina spent eighteen months stroking his ego, convincing him that he was the real genius behind Whitmore Dynamics, and that you were an ungrateful anchor holding him back."
"And the forty-two million wire to Zurich?"
"Grant thought that money was going to establish their private equity firm in Europe once he ditched you," Elena said with a grim smile. "In reality, the Swiss account had a secondary power-of-attorney protocol. Once the funds cleared, Sabrina had the sole authority to execute a swift rollover to a shell corporation in the Cook Islands. Grant was never going to see a single dollar of that money. She was going to board that plane to Miami, slip away during the investor summit, and vanish to South America."
"And Grant would have been left holding the bag for grand larceny and bank fraud," I said.
"Exactly. He would have faced twenty years in federal prison while she sat on a beach in Brazil with fifty million dollars of Hawthorne money."
I set my teacup down. A cold, dark anger settled deep into my bones. Grant had been a fool, blinded by vanity and lust, but Sabrina had deliberately targeted my family's legacy.
"Where is she now?" I asked.
"Our private investigator tracked her phone until she dumped it in a trash bin outside Penn Station," Elena said. "She bought a prepaid burner and rented an unmarked sedan under a fraudulent Florida ID. She knows the airport manifests are flagged. She’s moving by car."
"She’s heading south," I surmised. "Toward Florida. Toward her brother."
"That’s our bet," Elena agreed. "Her brother runs a private yacht charter out of Fort Lauderdale. If she reaches the marina, she can be in international waters within two hours."
My phone chimed on the table. It was a text from Captain Elias Monroe.
Mrs. Whitmore. Grant is at the Westchester private hangar. He broke through the perimeter gate on foot. Airport police have detained him. He’s demanding to speak with you.
May you like
I looked up at Elena.
"Get your coat, Elena," I said, rising to my feet. "Let’s go show my husband the woman he traded his life for."
