Chapter 11 - Shadows in the Emerald City
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Two days later, the wet Seattle winter turned bitter cold.
I took Lila to a small park near Alki Beach so she could feed the seagulls. As she ran along the concrete pier in her bright yellow raincoat, her laughter echoing over the gray waves, I noticed a silver sedan parked along the curb fifty yards away.
The engine was idling. The driver wore dark sunglasses despite the overcast sky.
My instincts flared instantly. I grabbed Lila’s hand, walked quickly back to my car, and drove home, keeping a constant eye on the rearview mirror. The silver sedan followed us at a discrete distance for six blocks before turning off onto Interstate 5.
When we reached my apartment building, I found an unmarked manila envelope slipped under my front door.
Inside were four high-resolution photographs.
The first photo showed Lila sitting on the pier from ten minutes ago. The second showed her sitting in the plush chair in my living room, taken through my apartment window from an angle across the street.
On the back of the third photo, written in neat black block letters, was a short message:
DROP THE STATEMENTS TO CPS, OR WE DROP THE CASE AGAINST YOUR BROTHER'S FIRM. ACCIDENTS HAPPEN TO LITTLE GIRLS IN FOGGY CITIES.
My hands shook with rage so intense my vision blurred. Grant wasn't trying to hide anymore. He was waging a psychological siege against us from eight hundred miles away.
I immediately scanned the photos and sent them directly to Marcus in Denver and the FBI field office in Seattle.
"This is witness intimidation," I told the federal agent who took my statement over the phone an hour later. "He’s violating his bail conditions!"
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"Without proof that Grant Whitaker directly ordered these photos taken, we can't revoke his bond yet, Mr. Whitaker," the agent replied frustratingly. "Private investigators are legal to hire, even from home arrest."
I slammed the phone down. The system was protecting him. If I wanted to stop Grant, I had to stop relying on the law to do it for me. I needed to burn his foundation to the ground.
