Chapter 5 - THE PHANTOM ON THE SCREEN
The screen flashed continuously in the quiet, glass-walled room.
Incoming Video Call: Vivian Sterling.
Grant stared at the glowing display as if it were a venomous snake coiled on the bed. His breath rattled in his chest. Natalie backed away toward the door, clutching her throat, her eyes wide with terror.
"Don't answer it," Natalie whimpered. "Grant, do not pick that up!"
"If someone dug up that phone," Grant rasped, his voice trembling, "or if... if someone is playing a game with us, I need to know who it is."
With a shaking thumb, Grant swiped the green icon to accept the call. He forced the phone away from his face, holding it at arm's length.
The screen went black for two terrifying seconds.
Then, the camera feed connected.
The lighting in the video was low, harsh, and flickered with a cold blue hue. The background was clearly the interior of a vehicle, rain washing down the glass windows outside.
Sitting in the center of the frame was Vivian.
Her hair was damp and plastered to her cheeks. She was wearing her black silk burial gown, the collar torn and stained with dark brown dirt. Her skin was ghastly pale, but her eyes—those sharp, piercing dark brown eyes that had governed boardroom meetings for a decade—were wide open, fixed directly on the lens.
She wasn't dead. She wasn't a ghost. She was breathing.
Grant’s knees buckled. He grabbed the edge of the mahogany dresser to keep from falling to the floor.
"Gr... Grant," Natalie shrieked from the doorway, covering her mouth as she caught a glimpse of the screen.
On the screen, Vivian slowly lifted her hand. Her fingers were caked with cemetery mud, her nails cracked and bleeding. She raised a single finger to her lips, making a soft shushing motion.
"Hello, Grant," Vivian said. Her voice was weak and gravelly, but every syllable was sharp as broken glass. "Did you really think six feet of earth could keep me quiet?"
"Vivian..." Grant gasped, his throat so dry he could barely form her name. "This isn't... you were dead. Dr. Hale said..."
"Dr. Hale is a paid hack, Grant," Vivian interrupted, her expression unreadable, terrifyingly calm. "He mistook a chemical paralysis for cardiac arrest. Or perhaps he didn't care to check too closely for twenty thousand dollars in cash?"
Grant felt a cold sweat burst across his forehead. He tried to speak, tried to construct a lie, but his mind was a chaotic mess of horror and confusion.
"Where are you?" Grant choked out. "Vivian, listen to me... there's been a terrible mistake... a medical error..."
"Save your pathetic lies for the Grand Jury, Grant," Vivian said softly. She leaned closer to the camera, her cold gaze cutting straight through the screen. "Look at Natalie next to you. Look at her very carefully."
Grant glanced back at Natalie, who was frozen in horror, tears streaming down her face.
"You two took eleven months to poison me," Vivian continued, her voice dipping into a low, terrifying whisper. "You took my health, my strength, and my home. But you forgot one simple rule of business, Grant."
She held up a clear medical specimen bag to the camera. Inside the plastic was a small, sealed glass vial containing a clear liquid—the remaining contents of the chamomile tea tin she had hidden in her personal vault two weeks ago.
"Always verify your assets," Vivian said. "I knew what you were doing. I knew about the offshore transfers. I knew about the hotel proxies. I let you think you were winning so you would expose every single person involved in your little conspiracy."
"Vivian, please!" Grant begged, his composure completely gone. He fell to his knees on the rug. "We can talk about this! Whatever you want—the money, the estate—it's yours! Just tell me where you are!"
"I'm somewhere warm now, Grant," Vivian said with a slow, chilling smile. "But you... you should start running. Because in exactly ten minutes, the State Police are going to enter that house with a warrant for attempted capital murder."
"Wait! Vivian!" Grant screamed into the phone.
"Goodbye, sweet husband," she whispered.
The screen went black. The call disconnected.
Silence descended back onto the Greenwich bedroom, heavier and cold.
Grant sat on his knees in the middle of the room, staring at the dead screen. Beside him, Natalie began to sob uncontrollably.
"What do we do?" Natalie panicked, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. "Grant! What do we do? She's alive! She has the vial! She has everything!"
Grant slowly looked up. The paralyzing terror in his eyes began to twist, transforming into something desperate, dark, and wild.
"She's still weak," Grant said, his voice dropping into a low, sinister register. "She just dug herself out of a hole. She can barely stand."
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He stood up, grabbing his coat and keys from the table.
"She's not at a hospital yet," Grant said, his eyes burning with frantic energy. "She called us from a truck. She's somewhere near Oakridge Cemetery. If we catch her before she meets the police... we can finish this."
