Chapter 4 - The Bait and the Web
On the other end of the line, Grant’s breathing was ragged.
I could hear the television in our den—the golf channel, which he always left on as background noise when he was alone in the house. But behind the murmur of the announcers, there was a strange, wet clicking sound.
It was his thumbnail against his teeth. A nervous tic he’d had since our college days at Chapel Hill, whenever he had overdrawn his student checking account or failed an accounting mid-term.
“Meredith?”
“Yes, sweetie. I can barely hear you—the terminal is packed. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, but his voice was thin, pitched half an octave too high. “Yeah. Fine. Owen’s with Paige. She picked him up about twenty minutes ago.”
*Lie number one.* Paige had picked Owen up at eight-thirty that morning.
“Did he have his inhaler?” I asked, leaning into the role of the fretful, distracted mother. “The weather in Charlotte looked like rain when I left. His chest gets tight when the barometric pressure drops.”
“He’s fine, Merry. Jesus. He’s ten years old, not an infant.”
A beat of silence. He realized he had sounded too sharp. He cleared his throat, trying to force the easy, practiced charm back into his delivery.
“Sorry, babe. Just... had a weird call from the office. Logistics glitch on the container shipment out of Charleston. Listen, did you... did you stop by the safe before you left this morning?”
My heart didn't even skip. The ice had set in completely now.
“The safe? No. Why would I? I told you, Duke Energy covers all my travel per diem. I haven't opened that box since we paid the tree trimmers in February. Why? Did you need something out of it?”
He didn't answer immediately. I could hear his feet pacing the hardwood floor of our kitchen—six steps toward the refrigerator, six steps back toward the island.
“Grant?”
“The cash is gone, Meredith.”
“What?” I let my voice rise into a sharp, startled squeak. “What do you mean, *gone*? Grant, there was over forty thousand dollars in there! That was Owen’s tuition for Country Day!”
“I know what it was!” he hissed, his control cracking again. “I came up to get some petty cash to pay the landscaper, and the box was unlocked. The envelopes were there, but...”
He stopped. He couldn't tell me the envelopes contained prop money without admitting he had inspected them. And he certainly couldn't tell me that Victoria Vance was currently sitting in an interrogation room at the Law Enforcement Center on East Trade Street trying to explain why she had thirty-nine thousand dollars of Hollywood movie props in her Birkin bag.
“The envelopes were what, Grant?”
“They were... some of it’s missing,” he stammered, scrambling to construct a narrative on the fly. “I think... I think Paige might have taken it when she came through to get Owen’s soccer bag.”
The cruelty of it took what little breath I had left.
He was willing to throw my sister to the police—to accuse the woman who had watched our son when he had pneumonia, who had lent us eight thousand dollars when his logistics firm cratered—just to buy himself four hours of cover.
“Paige doesn't know the combination, Grant,” I said, my voice dead and cold.
“She could have watched you open it! She’s over here three days a week, Meredith! She’s always snooping around the master closet!”
“We will deal with this when I get back,” I said, keeping my tone perfectly calibrated to *shocked wife on the verge of tears.* “Do not call the police yet. If Paige took it, I want to talk to her first. I don’t want Owen seeing his aunt in handcuffs. Promise me you won’t do anything until I land tomorrow night.”
“I have to go,” he said abruptly. “Someone’s at the front door.”
“Grant—”
He hung up.
Across from me in the car, Paige was trembling with rage. Her teeth were clenched so hard the muscles in her jaw looked like cords.
“He blamed me,” she whispered. “The son of a bitch blamed me.”
“He doesn't have anyone else left to blame,” I said, watching the bank across the street.
The police had just brought Victoria Vance out through the front glass doors.
Her camel coat was gone—likely seized as evidence or left inside the manager’s office. She was wearing only her black trousers and the ivory silk blouse. Her wrists were handcuffed behind her back.
An officer held her by the upper arm, guiding her into the back of the cruiser. Her face was dark with fury, her mouth working continuously, spitting words at the young patrolman who remained entirely expressionless as he pushed her head down to clear the doorframe.
Behind them came Arthur Pendergast.
He was carrying a clear evidence bag containing the four stacks of theatrical bills, along with Victoria’s leather tote and the legal folder Grant had handed her forty minutes ago.
“Look at the folder,” Paige said.
The twill ribbon had been untied. Arthur was holding it by the edges, talking to a plainclothes detective who had just arrived in an unmarked Ford Taurus.
“Thomas called them,” I said. “He didn't just call the branch. He called the Financial Crimes Task Force. He told them Victoria Vance was attempting to record a fraudulent conveyance on timber acreage under state conservation protection.”
“Then why did Grant say someone was at the door?” Paige asked.
My phone screen lit up again.
This time, it wasn't Grant. It was the security application connected to our front porch Ring camera.
I tapped the alert.
On the screen, two men in dark gray suits stood on our front stoop. One of them was holding a clipboard; the other had a leather case tucked beneath his arm.
They were not Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers.
On their jackets, small gold lapel pins caught the afternoon sun: the state seal of North Carolina, surrounded by the words *State Bureau of Investigation – Special Investigations Division.*
Beside them, parked at the curb where my rideshare had picked me up six hours ago, was a dark blue Dodge Durango with state government plates.
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“They aren't there for the money,” I told Paige, watching the screen as Grant opened the door, his face pale, his polo shirt untucked. “They’re there for the warehouse.”
***
