Chapter 5 - The Trap at the Observatory
The Hawthorne observatory stood on a cliff above the Pacific.
It had been closed for years after storm damage weakened the road.
Lydia arrived carrying a leather folder.
A tracking device had been sewn into her coat.
Police waited beyond the ridge.
Grant stepped from the shadows.
He looked exhausted.
His beard had grown unevenly, and his expensive clothes were stained.
But he still smiled as though he controlled the situation.
“You came.”
“For Noah.”
“Your brother is safe.”
“No thanks to you.”
Grant held out his hand.
“The transfer.”
Lydia opened the folder.
Inside was a document granting him temporary authority over Hayes Capital’s voting shares.
It appeared authentic.
It was not.
“What did my mother discover?” she asked.
Grant studied her.
“She discovered Marjorie wasn’t the only Hawthorne stealing.”
“Who else?”
“Your father.”
Lydia froze.
Her father had died when she was sixteen.
He had supposedly been killed in a boating accident.
Grant continued.
“Your father and mine were moving money through overseas construction contracts. Eleanor discovered it. She threatened to expose both families.”
“Why didn’t she?”
“Because your father died first.”
“Did Marjorie kill him?”
“No.”
Grant smiled.
“Your mother did.”
Lydia’s hand tightened around the folder.
“That’s a lie.”
“She sabotaged his boat.”
Grant produced an old audio recorder.
Eleanor’s voice emerged.
“I couldn’t let Thomas take the children. I did what I had to do.”
Lydia felt the world tilt.
Grant stepped closer.
“Your mother wasn’t innocent.”
“No one said she was.”
“You still defend her?”
“I defend the truth.”
Grant reached for the folder.
Lydia pulled it away.
“Play the entire recording.”
“That’s all you need.”
“The sentence begins in the middle.”
Grant’s eyes narrowed.
Lydia had noticed the abrupt audio cut.
He had edited it.
“You’re still doing the same thing,” she said. “Removing the beginning so the victim looks guilty.”
Grant grabbed her wrist.
She dropped the folder.
He twisted her arm.
“You should have crawled under the dog.”
Lydia looked past him.
“No. You should have opened the door.”
Police lights appeared across the ridge.
Grant pulled a gun.
Before he could raise it, Atlas charged from behind Lydia.
The mastiff struck Grant’s chest and knocked him to the ground.
Detective Cole’s team rushed forward.
Grant was arrested.
The full audio recording was later recovered from Marjorie’s storage unit.
Eleanor had not sabotaged Thomas Hayes’s boat.
She had discovered he planned to abduct Lydia and Noah after she confronted him about fraud.
She disabled his car to stop him from reaching the marina.
Thomas used another vehicle and died during a storm after ignoring coast guard warnings.
Her full statement had been:
“I couldn’t let Thomas take the children. I did what I had to do. I called the police and blocked his car, but he found another way to leave.”
Grant had removed everything except the sentence he needed.
Once again, he had transformed protection into madness through editing.
But there was one more surprise.
The transfer document Grant had attempted to take contained invisible forensic powder.
His fingerprints connected him to earlier forged trust documents.
The observatory meeting completed the prosecution’s case.
May you like
He had walked directly into Lydia’s trap.
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