Chapter 13 - THE PERSON ACROSS THE STREET
Police arrived in minutes.
They searched rooftops, parking structures, nearby offices, and the street below.
No Ryan.
No photographer.
Nothing.
I was moved again.
This time, to a secure residence arranged through investigators.
I was furious.
Not afraid.
Furious.
Ryan had already taken enough.
My trust.
My marriage.
My peace.
Now he was taking my freedom to walk through my own city.
Rebecca saw the anger.
“Use it carefully.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means anger is fuel, but you don’t let it drive.”
Easy for her to say.
Then investigators traced the number.
It was a prepaid phone activated two hours earlier.
The purchase location was a convenience store in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Security footage showed a man buying it.
Not Ryan.
Grant.
I stared at Morales.
“Grant is in custody.”
“He made bond this morning.”
Nobody had told me yet.
Grant had surrendered his passport.
He was prohibited from contacting me.
But apparently he still believed rules belonged to other people.
The convenience-store footage was grainy but convincing.
His attorney insisted Grant had driven north to visit a friend.
Police disagreed.
They arrested him again before sunset.
The phone was not found on him.
That created a new question.
Who had it?
Grant admitted buying it.
He denied sending the photograph.
Then, under pressure, he changed his story.
He bought it for Ryan.
Suddenly everyone was betraying everyone.
Grant told investigators Ryan contacted him through an encrypted messaging app.
Ryan wanted cash.
Transportation.
A new phone.
Grant claimed he refused.
Nobody believed him.
Then Grant made his move.
He offered the location of a second cabin in exchange for consideration.
Ryan was arrested there at 4:37 the next morning.
He did not resist.
The missing handgun was found in his backpack.
Loaded.
Beside it was the prepaid phone.
And on that phone were fourteen photographs of me.
Including the image taken through my temporary apartment window.
I vomited when Morales told me.
Not because of morning sickness.
Because Ryan had been watching me.
Again.
His messages to Grant were recovered.
Ryan: Claire is destroying us.
Grant: She did exactly what I warned you she would do.
Ryan: I can talk to her.
Grant: She’s done talking.
Ryan: Then what?
Grant: Fix it.
Those two words became central to the prosecution.
Fix it.
Ryan claimed Grant meant negotiate.
Grant claimed he meant convince me to withdraw the lawsuit.
The handgun made both explanations harder to believe.
Ryan was detained without bond.
For the first time since New Year’s Eve, I slept six uninterrupted hours.
When I woke, there was another development.
The financial forensic team had identified the unknown recipient of several Crestmont transfers.
The money went to a private investigator named Samuel Dyer.
Dyer had been paid $96,000.
His job?
Follow me.
Photograph me.
Document my meetings.
Access my trash.
Identify anyone I might use for legal or financial advice.
The surveillance went back eleven months.
Then came the final invoice.
Dated December twenty-seventh.
Subject line:
JANUARY 17 CONTINGENCY PREPARATION.
Dyer was arrested that afternoon on unrelated outstanding charges.
Within six hours, he requested a deal.
He told prosecutors what contingency meant.
Grant had hired him to stage evidence that I was having an affair.
Fake hotel records.
Photographs edited to place me with another man.
Messages planted through a spoofed account.
The plan was to confront me on January seventeenth.
Ryan would demand I sign the trust and a postnuptial agreement.
If I refused, they would threaten to expose the fabricated affair and seek full custody after our daughter was born.
“And the pills?” I asked Morales.
Dyer claimed he knew nothing about them.
I believed that part.
Grant and Ryan had built layers.
Financial pressure.
Humiliation.
Surveillance.
Blackmail.
Medication.
Violence.
Each tool designed for the same purpose.
Control.
Then Morales handed me one final page from Dyer’s statement.
I read the last paragraph twice.
“Is this true?”
“We’re verifying it.”
Dyer claimed Ryan had asked a question during one meeting.
May you like
A question that even Grant had refused to answer.
How much would an accident cost?
