Meine Stimme zitterte.
“Du hast mich dazu gebracht, dich zu begraben.”
Sie zuckte zusammen.
“Ja, habe ich.”
Grant stellte sich zwischen uns.
“Eleanor.”
Sie sah ihn an.
“Du siehst aus wie dein Onkel.”
Grants Gesicht veränderte sich.
“Du kanntest Elias?”
“I helped put him in prison.”
Silence.
Rebecca stared.
“Elias Mercer is alive?”
My mother nodded.
“He has been for twenty years.”
“Where?”
“No one knows.”
Grant laughed bitterly.
“Convenient.”
She ignored him.
Then she looked at me.
“Your father didn’t die naturally.”
I stopped.
“I knew you were going to say that.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“You knew someone might have killed him.”
“That’s different?”
“Yes.”
She looked at Grant.
“Because Grant’s father killed Thomas.”
Grant went still.
“My father was in Florida the night Thomas died.”
“No.”
Eleanor’s voice hardened.
“That’s where the plane ticket said he was.”
Grant stepped forward.
“You’re lying.”
“Richard confessed to me.”
“When?”
“The night he died.”
Grant’s face emptied.
I watched the man I had once loved absorb the possibility that his father had murdered mine.
Then alarms began screaming throughout Mercer Tower.
The garage lights switched red.
Grant looked upward.
“What now?”
Daniel checked his phone.
“Building lockdown.”
“Why?”
“Cyberattack.”
A large monitor on the garage wall flickered.
The Mercer Dynamics logo disappeared.
Black filled the screen.
White letters appeared.
HELLO, CLAIRE.
My blood turned cold.
Everyone looked at me.
Another sentence appeared.
YOUR FATHER BUILT THE ENGINE.
Then another.
YOUR HUSBAND BUILT THE CAGE.
Noch einer.
DU HAST DEN SCHLÜSSEL GEBAUT.
flüsterte meine Mutter.
“Nein.”
Grant sah sie an.
“Was?”
Sie wich vom Bildschirm zurück.
“Das sollte noch nicht passieren.”
Der letzte Satz erschien.
In genau diesem Moment durchfuhr mein Bauch so heftig, dass ich schrie.
Warme Flüssigkeit lief meine Beine hinunter.
Meine Mutter hat mich gepackt.
“Mein Wasser.”
Grant wurde blass.
rief Rebecca nach Daniel.
Mein Baby kam.
Dann zeigte der Monitor die letzte Nachricht an.
BRING MIR DEN ERBEN.
