Chapter 6 - THE PAYMENT
Grant received two hundred thousand dollars from David six months earlier.
The payment came through a shell company.
The same month Grant intensified control over Sarah.
The discovery contradicted every simple explanation.
Grant claimed revenge.
David paid him.
Grant claimed he hunted David.
David met him.
Julian demanded an interview.
Grant agreed only if Sarah attended.
She refused.
Then she changed her mind.
Not for Grant.
For herself.
The interview room was cold.
Grant sat behind glass.
Bruises from arrest marked his jaw.
He smiled when Sarah entered.
“You look better without makeup.”
Sarah sat across from him.
Julian remained beside the door.
Porter watched from the observation room.
Sarah asked, “Why did my father pay you?”
Grant leaned back.
“To watch you.”
“Watch me?”
“David thought Julian might use you against him.”
Julian’s face hardened.
Grant continued.
“Your father paid me to stay close. Report contact. Report questions. Report whether you remembered anything.”
“Remembered what?”
“The boat.”
Sarah was sixteen the night David disappeared.
She remembered being home.
Or believed she was.
Grant said she had been at the marina.
David brought her there after an argument.
She saw him transfer fuel cans.
She saw Vance arrive.
David gave her something to make her sleep.
The next morning, she woke at home.
Her memory became fragmented.
Julian was told Sarah had taken grief medication.
Sarah looked at her brother.
He nodded slowly.
“I found you asleep in your room.”
Grant said David feared the memory might return.
For years, nothing happened.
Then Sarah began therapy after marrying Grant.
She described dreams.
A dock.
Gasoline.
Her father saying, “This is the only way.”
Grant reported the dreams to David.
David ordered him to keep her stable.
Stable meant isolated.
Confused.
Doubtful of herself.
Grant took money.
At first, he only monitored.
Then he began hurting her.
He discovered violence gave him power no payment ever had.
Sarah asked, “Did my father tell you to hit me?”
“No.”
“Did he know?”
Grant smiled.
“He told me not to leave marks.”
Julian moved forward.
Sarah raised one hand.
He stopped.
Grant watched the gesture.
A sister stopping a brother without fear.
The kind of power Grant could never understand.
Sarah asked, “Where is David?”
Grant looked at the glass.
“He’ll contact you.”
“Why?”
“Because I have something he needs.”
“You’re in custody.”
“I sent it before arrest.”
“What?”
“A copy of the full archive.”
Porter entered immediately.
“To whom?”
Grant laughed.
“You think I’d tell you?”
The company’s cyber team traced the transfer.
It went to a private server in Canada.
Then split into encrypted packages.
One package was scheduled for automatic public release.
Another went to an email address linked to David.
The third went to Sarah.
Her secret phone received it while she sat in the interview room.
A video file.
Recorded that night.
David Cross appeared on screen.
Older.
Gray hair.
Same eyes.
He sat in an unknown room.
“Sarah,” he began, “I know what Grant did to you.”
Sarah closed the video.
She could not hear the rest yet.
Grant watched.
“You wanted the truth.”
“No,” Sarah said. “You wanted to choose when I received it.”
She stood.
“You don’t control that anymore.”
Outside the room, Sarah deleted Grant’s access link without opening the file again.
She kept the downloaded copy.
May you like
Her father could wait.
For the first time, the man at the center of the family story would wait for her.
