Chapter 8 - The Desperate Attack
Not all shadows disappear easily.
A month after the studio launch, winter had returned to Chicago. A heavy blanket of snow covered the streets, and a howling wind blew off Lake Michigan.
It was 8:00 PM on a Tuesday evening. Claire was closing up the studio alone. Rachel had taken Hope home an hour earlier to get her settled for bed.
Claire switched off the main track lighting, leaving only the soft glow of the desk lamp illuminating the loft. She pulled on her heavy woolen coat, locked her laptop in the desk drawer, and picked up her leather tote bag.
As she reached the heavy glass exit door of the building, a dark figure stepped out from the shadows of the alleyway outside.
Claire gasped, stepping back instinctively.
The man pulled down his scarf and raised his hands in a frantic, pleading gesture.
It was Grant.
Claire felt a cold bolt of panic shoot through her chest, immediately followed by white-hot anger.
Grant looked unhinged. He was thin, pale, and unshaven, wearing a dirty, crumpled winter coat. His eyes were wild, bloodshot, and wide with desperation. He had violated his court-ordered restraining order simply by being within five hundred feet of her.
"Claire! Don't run, please!" Grant shouted through the heavy glass door, banging his palm against it. "Please, just open the door! I just need to speak to you for two minutes!"
Claire immediately pulled her smartphone from her pocket, her thumb hovering over the emergency SOS button. "Grant, get away from here! You're breaking the law! I am calling the police right now!"
"Don't call the cops!" Grant screamed, his voice cracking with hysteria as he slammed both fists against the glass. "They’re going to revoke my probation! Claire, please! Look at me! Look at what you’ve done to me!"
"What I did to you?!" Claire shouted through the glass, her hands trembling, though her voice remained fierce. "You did this to yourself, Grant! Leave right now!"
"I have nothing!" Grant wept loudly, pressing his forehead against the cold glass. "I’m living in a disgusting one-bedroom basement apartment! My father won't answer my calls! Nobody in the financial industry will hire me—I'm working night shifts at a car rental counter! I can't even see my own daughter without a social worker watching me like I'm a monster!"
"You are a monster!" Claire yelled back. "You abandoned me when I was dying! You stood there while that crazy woman hurt our baby!"
"I panicked!" Grant pleaded, his tears freezing on his cheeks in the biting cold. "I made a mistake, Claire! Everyone makes mistakes! Why won't you forgive me?! Why can't we just go back to how things were?!"
"Because the woman you cheated on, humiliated, and tried to break is dead," Claire said coldly, staring directly into his sunken eyes. "I am not your wife anymore. I owe you nothing."
Grant’s desperate expression suddenly twisted into a terrifying mask of rage.
"You think you're so smart now, don't you?!" Grant roared, kicking the bottom of the glass door violently. "You took my money, my home, my career, my reputation! You destroyed my life with that damn video! If I can't have my family, if I can't have my life back, you don't get to have yours either!"
Grant reached into his heavy coat pocket and pulled out a heavy metal crowbar.
Claire’s heart stopped.
He raised the crowbar, preparing to shatter the glass door to force his way inside.
"Grant, NO!" Claire screamed, backing up rapidly into the darkened studio studio.
Before Grant could swing the iron bar against the glass, a heavy shadow slammed into him from the side with brutal, explosive force.
Grant was tackled off his feet, flying across the icy sidewalk and crashing hard into a snowbank.
Caleb Vance stood over him, his face thunderous with rage, his fists clenched tight. Caleb had been driving by the studio to drop off a set of printed photo proofs for Claire when he had seen Grant screaming at the door.
"Get up," Caleb growled, his voice like grinding stones as he stepped between Grant and the glass door. "Get up and try it again."
Grant scrambled backward in the snow, terrified, holding the crowbar up weakly. "Who the hell are you?!"
"I’m the guy who’s going to break your jaw if you take one more step toward that door," Caleb said, his broad frame completely blocking the entrance.
In the distance, the loud, wailing sirens of approaching Chicago police cruisers echoed through the winter air. Claire had successfully pressed the emergency button on her phone.
Grant looked at Caleb, then looked down the street at the flashing red and blue lights approaching fast. Panic took over. He dropped the crowbar into the snow, scrambled to his feet, and ran blindly down the dark alleyway into the night.
Caleb didn't chase him. He turned immediately, unlocked the glass door, and stepped inside.
"Claire! Are you okay?" Caleb asked urgently, rushing to her side, his hands gently holding her shoulders.
Claire was shaking uncontrollably, her breath coming in ragged hitches as the adrenaline began to flush out of her system. But as she looked up into Caleb’s fiercely protective, caring brown eyes, the terror dissolved.
She didn't freeze. She didn't retreat into herself.
Claire stepped forward and wrapped her arms tightly around Caleb’s waist, burying her face into his snow-dusted coat.
Caleb wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, anchoring her in the storm.
"It's over, Claire," Caleb whispered gently, resting his chin on top of her head. "I've got you. You're safe."
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Twenty minutes later, the police arrived. Grant was hunted down and arrested three blocks away, caught hiding behind a dumpster. Because he had violated the restraining order while armed with a weapon, his probation was immediately revoked.
Grant Morgan was remanded to custody without bail, facing real prison time. His final attempt to reclaim his past had permanently sealed his fate.
