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Grant needed to be gone. All this—because Grant had betrayed him. Worked with the damn marshal! Gave him confidential files and information. This mess could all be laid at Grant’s feet.
Franklin wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. He had to fix this. Somehow.
Franklin called Nelson Lee. It was a risk, because Nelson worked for BioRise. But they had a common enemy here, and Franklin needed to just make everythinggo away.
The phone kept ringing and ringing.
Franklin almost threw his cell phone across his library. “Dammit! Dammit!”
He pulled himself together. He had a plan. Twenty-four hours? Screw that. He’d leave tonight.
James thought he had the upper hand? Bullshit. Obviously, his pet assassin Lee had killed Madeline and framed Grant. What had they planned, to fake a suicide? Grant kills his girlfriend, then kills himself. It might be believable on the surface—to anyone who didn’t know Grant Warwick well.
Franklin would just let that play out. Grant made his fucking bed. And he’d already started the ball rolling by what he’d told the police and then Regan.
Grant was paranoid. Grant was arguing with Maddie in the office. Grant came by his house, hysterical. Yeah, it might work.
Would Regan buy a suicide? That was the million-dollar question. Her leaving Virginia had saved Franklin last year. Once Adam Hannigan was dead, the answers to her questions died with him. With Granger gone, a fall guy firmly planted, and Grant on the run... Regan would do well to return to Arizona and never darken Franklin’s door again.
And if she didn’t, if she stayed, he wasn’t responsible for what happened to her.
Franklin called his wife. He wasn’t surprised she was wide awake; she knew how deep he’d gotten in with BioRise. She didn’t know everything—certainly not about the accident with Chase Warwick. But she knew enough. Isabelle was a tolerant, understanding woman with ample business sense who understood the gray areas very well, but she wouldn’t have been able to live with knowledge of murder.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” she said.
“They know where you are. I’ll be there first thing in the morning. I’m going to wrap up our contingency plan and drive up there. Stay in the hotel room with the girls until I call you. We’ll go to Canada, fly from there. It’ll be fine, but we have to be careful.”
“I already sent the girls to Monica and Kevin.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I sensed someone in the lobby watching me. The girls are fourteen, they’re innocent.”
Monica was Isabelle’s sister, and she and Kevin were the only people Franklin might trust with his daughters. They lived in Canada, on a farm outside Edmonton. Where everyone knew everyone, and strangers stood out.
“You should have gone with them, Isabelle. Why didn’t you?”
“Because I love you, Franklin. We’re in this together. I’ll wait for you. When it’s safe, we’ll send for the girls.”
“I’ve made mistakes.”
“We both have. Butweare not a mistake. I’ll wait. Don’t be long.”
“I love you.”
He ended the call, sat at his desk for a long few minutes, listening to the night around him. The house was quiet, too quiet, without his family. The grandfather clock ticked in the foyer—his great-grandfather had brought it over from Switzerland more than a hundred years ago. That was the only sound.
His father...his father had started this. He’d brought in BioRise. He’d created the monster. Then he left, turned everything over to Franklin and at first, it had been a gift. A bright, shiny, moneymaking gift and he’d been grateful.
Now he was paying the price. Not his father, no—he was still happily retired in Florida with all the money in the world. But he, Franklin Archer, the good son, the son who wanted to please his father, who built on what his father created, was now at risk of losing it all because of Grant Warwick.
The lawyer he’d brought in, cultivated, educated, treated like a brother.
Franklin never wanted his life to come to this...to running away. He’d always taken risks in his business, but it was both thrilling and rewarding. Until two years ago, he was on top of the world.
Then one thing and another and another, and now he was on a slippery slope down to hell. He walked over to the minibar hidden in his bookshelf and poured himself two fingers of whiskey. Drank it in one long burning gulp.
“You were looking for me.”
