Chapter 7
Derek called at seven-oh-two the next morning.
I was already at my desk.
Julian was in the conference room next door, listening on a separate line.
The two FBI agents—Special Agents Carter and Miller—were in the building’s security office, recording everything.
Helen, Vincent, and Arthur stood around my desk, silent and grim.
I pressed answer.
“Hello, Derek.”
“Clara.” His voice was soft. Gentle. The voice he had used when we were dating. The voice that had once made me feel safe. “Baby. I’ve been thinking about everything. About us. About what I did. And I need to see you. I need to apologize. Properly. In person.”
I let a beat pass.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said, making my voice tremble just enough. “After what happened—”
“I know,” he said. “I know. I was a monster. I was wrong. About everything. Sloane meant nothing. I was confused. I was under so much pressure. And I took it out on the only person who ever loved me. Please, Clara. Just give me thirty minutes. That’s all I ask. Thirty minutes to say what I need to say. Then if you still want me gone, I’ll go. I’ll sign anything. I’ll do anything.”
I looked at Helen.
She nodded.
“Where?” I asked.
“The old warehouse on Terminal Road,” he said. “You know the one. The first one your father bought us. It’s empty now. No one around. Just us. We can talk without cameras or lawyers or anyone listening.”
My blood ran cold.
The old warehouse.
The place where our marriage had really started.
The place Derek had brought me after our first real date, to show me his “dream.”
And now he wanted to bring me there to end it.
“Okay,” I said softly. “Thirty minutes. Ten o’clock.”
“Thank you, baby,” he said. “Thank you. You won’t regret this. I promise.”
He hung up.
I looked at the others.
“Terminal Road warehouse,” I said. “Ten o’clock.”
Vincent swore.
“That place is a death trap,” he said. “No cameras. No neighbors. Three miles from the nearest main road. He could do anything to you out there.”
“That’s the point,” Julian said, walking into the room. “He wants privacy. He wants to be able to threaten her. Maybe worse. And that’s exactly what we need. We need him to show us exactly who he is.”
He laid a map of the warehouse on the desk.
“Here’s the layout,” he said. “Main loading bay at the front. Offices at the back. Agents Carter and Miller will be in an unmarked van at the end of the access road. They’ll have audio and visual feeds. They’ll move in the second Derek makes a credible threat. I’ll be inside the warehouse the whole time—hidden in the old office above the loading bay. I can see everything. I can hear everything. If anything goes wrong, I’m five seconds away.”
“I’m going too,” Vincent said.
“No,” Julian said. “Too many people. Derek will get spooked. This has to look real. Clara has to go in alone. Or as alone as Derek thinks she is.”
He turned to me.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked. “We can still call it off. We have enough to put him away for the embezzlement. We don’t have to do the conspiracy charges.”
I thought about Derek’s plan to lock me in a psychiatric ward.
I thought about him asking about accidents.
I thought about the eight years I’d lost.
“Yes,” I said. “We’re doing this. I want all of it. I want him to go away for a very long time. I want him to never be able to hurt anyone ever again.”
***
At nine forty-five, I pulled into the access road leading to the Terminal Road warehouse.
My heart was hammering.
My hands were gripping the steering wheel so tight my knuckles were white.
I had a wire taped to my chest under my blouse.
A tiny camera was hidden in the button of my blazer.
Julian’s voice came through the tiny earpiece I was wearing.
“Relax,” he said. “You’re doing great. I’m already in position. The agents are in place. Just breathe. And remember—let him talk. The more he says, the longer he goes away for.”
I took a deep breath.
I parked my car in front of the warehouse.
Derek was already there.
His car—the last one he’d been allowed to keep, a beat-up sedan he’d owned before we married—was parked by the loading dock.
He was leaning against it, waiting.
He looked terrible.
His suit was wrinkled. He hadn’t shaved. His eyes were red and bloodshot.
The confident CEO was gone.
In his place was a desperate, broken man.
But I knew better than to underestimate him.
Broken men were the most dangerous kind.
I got out of the car.
“Clara,” he said, pushing off the car. He held his hands out like he wanted to hug me. “You came. Thank God.”
I stopped ten feet away.
“Thirty minutes, Derek,” I said. “That’s all.”
His face fell slightly, but he recovered quickly.
“Of course,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go inside. I have something I want to show you.”
He turned and walked toward the warehouse entrance.
I followed.
The earpiece whispered again.
“Good. Keep your distance. Don’t let him touch you.”
Inside, the warehouse smelled like dust and old cardboard.
Sunlight streamed through cracks in the walls, illuminating motes of dancing dust.
Stacks of old pallets were pushed against one wall.
Derek walked to the center of the open space and turned to face me.
“Do you remember this place?” he asked. “Do you remember what we talked about here? Our dreams? The life we were going to build?”
“I remember,” I said. “I also remember you turned those dreams into lies.”
Derek’s face twisted.
For a second, I saw the real him—the anger, the resentment.
Then he masked it again.
“I know,” he said. “I know I messed up. But I can make it right, Clara. I can fix everything. All I need is a second chance. Just one.”
He reached into his jacket pocket.
My muscles tensed.
But he pulled out papers.
A thick manila envelope.
“I had my lawyer draw these up,” he said. “They’re post-nuptial agreements. If you sign them, everything goes back to the way it was. You get the house. I get the company. We both keep our dignity. We can even… try again. If you want.”
He held the papers out to me.
I didn’t take them.
“I already have the company, Derek,” I said. “And the house. And my dignity. Why would I sign anything that gives any of it back to you?”
The mask slipped again.
“Because,” he said, his voice hardening. “Because if you don’t, things are going to get very bad for you, Clara. Very bad.”
There it was.
The threat.
I let my eyes widen.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I have friends,” he said. “Powerful friends. Friends who don’t care about your father’s money or your fancy lawyers. Friends who can make you disappear. Or worse.”
He took a step toward me.
I stepped back.
“Sign the papers, Clara,” he said. “Sign them, and we walk away from this as friends. Refuse, and I promise you—you will spend the rest of your life wondering if today is the day someone comes for you. Wondering if your brakes will work. Wondering if the food you’re eating has been poisoned. Wondering if you’ll ever wake up again.”
He was close now.
Too close.
“Sign,” he hissed.
“Derek,” I said, loud and clear. “Are you threatening me? Are you threatening to have me killed if I don’t sign those papers?”
He smiled.
It was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen.
“I’m not threatening you, baby,” he said. “I’m promising you.”
That was enough.
I heard a crash from above.
Julian dropped from the office loft, landing catlike on the warehouse floor between Derek and me.
“Derek Callahan,” Julian said. “You are being recorded by federal agents. Everything you just said is on tape. Put the papers down. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
Derek’s head snapped toward Julian.
“Who the hell are you?”
The warehouse doors burst open.
Agents Carter and Miller ran in, their badges out, their guns drawn but pointed down.
“FBI!” Agent Carter shouted. “Derek Callahan, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder, extortion, and wire fraud. You have the right to remain silent—”
Derek didn’t let him finish.
He turned and ran.
Straight for the back of the warehouse.
There was a side door there—old, rusted, rarely used.
I had forgotten about it.
“Stop!” Agent Miller shouted.
But Derek was fast.
Faster than I would have given him credit for.
He threw the side door open and disappeared into the trees behind the warehouse.
Agent Miller took off after him.
Julian was right behind.
I stood frozen in the middle of the warehouse, my heart hammering so hard I thought it would burst through my chest.
Agent Carter ran over to me.
“Mrs. Callahan,” he said. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Go. Go get him.”
He didn’t need to be told twice.
He ran out the same door Derek had used.
I was alone now.
The silence of the warehouse was deafening.
I looked at the papers Derek had dropped.
They were scattered across the dusty floor.
I knelt down and picked one up.
It wasn’t a post-nuptial agreement.
It was a general release.
A document that would have freed Derek from any and all liability—for the embezzlement, for the assault, for everything.
And at the bottom, in fine print, was a clause I almost missed.
*The undersigned (Clara Langford Callahan) hereby irrevocably transfers all right, title, and interest in and to the Langford Family Trust, including all assets of Callahan Logistics, to Derek James Callahan.*
If I had signed it, I would have given him everything.
Every dollar.
Every building.
Every share.
I would have been left with nothing.
And he still would have killed me.
Because dead women don’t change their minds.
I heard shouting from outside.
Running footsteps.
Then—silence.
A minute later, Julian walked back through the side door.
He was alone.
His suit was torn at the knee.
He was breathing hard.
“He got away,” he said. “Miller tracked him for half a mile into the woods, but Derek knows this area. He grew up around here. He vanished. We’ve got units out looking. APB is out. Every cop in three counties is searching for him. But right now—”
He looked at me.
“Right now, Derek Callahan is loose. And he knows we have him dead to rights. He knows he’s going away for twenty years minimum if we catch him. Which means he has absolutely nothing left to lose.”
He paused.
“Clara, I need you to listen to me very carefully. Derek is going to come for you. Not for money. Not for the company. For revenge. He’s going to want to hurt you before he goes down. And he’s going to want it to hurt as much as possible.”
I thought about Derek’s smile.
I’m not threatening you, baby. I’m promising you.
“Then we make sure he never gets the chance,” I said.
May you like
I pulled out my phone.
This time, I called my father.
