Chapter 5 - Refuge in Quincy
The apartment above the laundromat in Quincy smelled of cheap soap and damp wool, but to Claire, it felt like a sanctuary.
She carried Noah up the narrow, creaking wooden stairs, keeping him wrapped in the warm blanket. Her younger brother, Leo, was sitting at the kitchen table, surrounded by his college textbooks.
He stood up, his eyes wide with shock. "Claire? What the hell? Who is that? Why are you covered in mud?"
"Leo, don't ask questions," Claire gasped, setting Noah down on the small sofa. "Lock the door. Slide the chain. Now!"
Leo didn't hesitate. He locked the door and pulled the curtains shut over the window overlooking the street. "Is this... is this the Whitman kid?"
"Yes," Claire said, her hands shaking as she pulled a dry towel from the closet. She sat beside Noah, gently drying his wet hair. "Vanessa tried to kill him, Leo. She tried to throw me off the cliffs. We need to hide him. Just for a few days, until his father gets back from Switzerland."
"Claire, this is kidnapping," Leo whispered, his face pale. "The police—"
"The police are controlled by the Whitmans in this county," Claire said, her voice hard. "Vanessa will have put out an amber alert by now. If we turn him in, they'll hand him right back to her."
She looked at Noah. He was shivering, his little face pale, but he was watching Claire with an intensity that broke her heart.
"Noah," Claire said softly, kneeling in front of him. "I have to call your dad. Do you know his private number? The one Vanessa doesn't control?"
Noah looked at the table. He reached out, grabbed Leo’s notebook and a pencil, and began to write.
His handwriting was shaky, his fingers stiff from the cold, but he wrote out a ten-digit number with absolute clarity.
Beneath the number, he wrote three words:
HE LOVES ME.
Claire's eyes filled with tears. "I know he does, baby. I know."
She dialed the number on her old burner phone.
The phone rang twice, three times, four times.
"Hello? Who is this?"
A tired, deep voice answered. It was Grant Whitman. The background noise sounded like a busy airport terminal.
"Mr. Whitman, my name is Claire Mason," Claire said, her voice trembling. "I’m the maid from your estate in Quincy. I have Noah."
Silence stretched over the line.
"What do you mean you have Noah? Where is my son? Vanessa called me... she said a maid had kidnapped him—"
"She lied to you, Mr. Whitman," Claire interrupted, her voice growing stronger. "Vanessa tried to push Noah down the marble stairs yesterday. I caught his wheelchair. Tonight, she tried to have her guards throw me off the cliff because I found her psychiatric records from Switzerland. She’s been drugging Noah for months to keep him from telling you about the abuse."
"This is insane..." Grant stammered, his voice cracking. "Vanessa loves Noah. She’s been taking care of him—"
"Listen to the recording, Mr. Whitman," Claire said.
She held her phone close to the digital voice recorder she had retrieved from the hollowed-out book and pressed play.
Vanessa’s cold, cruel voice filled the line: "If you tell him about the stairs, I will make sure he leaves you in the hospital forever."
A long, agonizing silence followed over the international line. Claire could hear Grant's ragged breathing, the sound of a man's world shattering into a million pieces.
"Where are you?" Grant whispered, his voice shaking with a terrifying, raw grief.
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"We're at my apartment in Quincy," Claire said. "But we can't stay here long. Vanessa’s guards will find us."
"I’m boarding a private charter right now," Grant said, his tone turning into that of the powerful, decisive CEO he was. "I will be in Boston in six hours. Claire... please. Keep my son safe. I am coming."
