Chapter 9
I called Dad.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Detective Hale immediately began tracing his phone.
Ryan lay back against the hospital pillow.
“You need to move fast.”
I glared at him.
“You don’t get to give me orders.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know.”
His mouth closed.
I almost laughed.
Apparently everybody in my life had learned the same irritating phrase.
Hale received a location.
Dad’s phone was moving north.
Toward the old Fairmont estate.
The house where my mother grew up.
Lauren turned pale when she heard.
“My father still owns it.”
Mom whispered, “That’s where he takes people when he wants privacy.”
Nobody asked what she meant.
Police organized a response.
Hale ordered me to stay at the hospital.
“No.”
“Sarah.”
“No.”
“This is an active operation.”
“My father is there because of me.”
“That does not make you useful at the scene.”
He was right.
I hated him for being right.
So I stayed.
For six minutes.
Then Ryan tried to get out of bed.
I stared at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Going.”
“You were shot.”
“I’ve had worse days.”
“You literally have a hole in your shoulder.”
He pulled at the monitor wires.
A nurse rushed in.
“What are you doing?”
Ryan ignored her.
I stepped in front of him.
“If you leave, police will arrest you again.”
“Fine.”
“You can barely stand.”
He looked at me.
“Your father saved you from me.”
That silenced me.
Ryan continued.
“I owe him.”
“You owe all of us.”
“Yes.”
No argument.
No manipulation.
Just yes.
I didn’t forgive him.
But I understood why he wanted to go.
Hale returned before Ryan could make it ten feet.
“You’re staying in the bed.”
Ryan glared at him.
“My father-in-law—”
“Is being handled by police.”
Then Hale looked at me.
“And so are you.”
My phone rang.
Dad.
I answered instantly.
“Dad?”
Victor’s voice came through.
“Hello, Sarah.”
Every part of me went cold.
I put it on speaker.
Hale signaled everyone to be quiet.
“Where is my father?”
“Having coffee.”
Dad shouted in the background.
“Sarah, do not come here!”
A loud impact.
Then silence.
“Don’t touch him!”
Victor chuckled.
“You sound like your mother.”
Mom stepped closer.
“Victor.”
Silence.
Then his voice changed.
“Claire.”
“I’m here.”
“I wondered when the dead would start speaking.”
Mom’s face hardened.
“Let Thomas go.”
“Bring me the ledger.”
“You know I don’t have it.”
Victor laughed.
“But Sarah does.”
I looked at Ryan.
He shook his head.
Victor continued.
“Your husband was always clever. Clever men become predictable when they think they’re smarter than everyone.”
I said, “I don’t know where the ledger is.”
Ryan watched me.
I wasn’t technically lying.
I knew it was in the grave.
I didn’t know exactly where inside the casket.
Victor said, “Then Ryan can tell you.”
“How do you know he’s here?”
A pause.
Too long.
Hale’s eyes sharpened.
Someone had given Victor information from inside the hospital.
Again.
A leak.
Victor said, “You have one hour.”
The call ended.
Hale immediately ordered his officers to secure the floor.
Then he looked at Ryan.
“Where exactly in the coffin?”
Ryan told him.
“There’s a false panel beneath the lining.”
Hale sent officers to the cemetery.
Mom sat down heavily.
“I should go.”
“No,” I said.
“Sarah, Victor wants me.”
“He wants the ledger.”
“He wants both.”
Ryan spoke from the bed.
“He’ll kill you.”
Mom looked at him.
“You don’t get to care.”
Ryan lowered his eyes.
“No.”
I looked at my mother.
“You’re not going.”
“What about Thomas?”
“I’m done trading people.”
The words came from somewhere deeper than fear.
“For twenty years everybody in this family has sacrificed someone else to protect somebody they love.”
I looked at Mom.
“You sacrificed Michael Cole.”
Then Dad’s empty chair in my mind.
“Dad sacrificed the truth.”
I looked at Ryan.
“You sacrificed me.”
His eyes closed.
“And Victor sacrifices everyone.”
Nobody spoke.
“We stop doing that.”
Hale nodded.
“That is why police handle it.”
Thirty minutes later, officers recovered the ledger from my mother’s empty grave.
Hale photographed every page before putting the original into evidence.
Ryan looked relieved.
Then terrified.
“Victor’s done.”
“Not yet,” Hale said.
The ledger was powerful.
But we still needed Dad alive.
Police planned the exchange.
A duplicate ledger would be delivered.
A tactical team would surround the estate.
Mom insisted on carrying it.
I expected Hale to refuse.
He didn’t.
“She’s the person Victor expects.”
I stepped forward.
“Then I’m coming.”
“No.”
“He expects me too.”
Mom immediately said, “Absolutely not.”
I turned to her.
“You don’t get to disappear again.”
Her eyes filled.
I continued.
“If you walk into that house, I walk in with you.”
Hale hated the plan.
But eventually he agreed to let us approach the front entrance while officers positioned around the property.
Ryan grabbed my hand before I left.
I pulled away instinctively.
His face tightened.
“Sorry.”
“What?”
“For touching you.”
I stared at him.
The fact that he finally understood he no longer had automatic permission to touch me made something ache inside my chest.
“Just tell me one thing.”
“Anything.”
“If we get through this, are you going to tell the truth?”
“Yes.”
“About everything?”
“Yes.”
“Even if it puts you in prison?”
He looked at me for several seconds.
Then nodded.
“Yes.”
I believed him.
Not because I trusted him.
Because for the first time, he looked like a man who had stopped trying to win.
The Fairmont estate stood behind iron gates at the end of a long private road.
I had visited as a child.
I remembered Christmas parties.
A piano.
Beautiful dresses.
Adults smiling while saying cruel things quietly.
Now police snipers hid among the trees.
Mom and I walked toward the front entrance.
She carried the fake ledger.
My hands shook.
She noticed.
“So do mine.”
I almost smiled.
The door opened.
Victor stood there.
For an old man, he looked remarkably calm.
“Claire.”
“Victor.”
His eyes moved to me.
“My little niece.”
“Don’t call me that.”
He smiled.
“You always had your mother’s temper.”
“Where is my father?”
“Inside.”
We entered.
The door closed behind us.
Dad sat in a dining chair.
His hands were tied.
His face was bruised.
But he was alive.
“Sarah.”
“I’m okay.”
Victor took the ledger from Mom.
He flipped through several pages.
Too quickly.
My stomach tightened.
He looked up.
“This is a copy.”
Mom went still.
Victor smiled.
“Did you think I wouldn’t recognize my own bookkeeping?”
He pulled a gun.
Dad shouted, “Run!”
Victor pointed it directly at me.
Mom stepped in front of me.
“No.”
Victor laughed.
“Still sacrificing yourself for her?”
Mom stared at him.
“Yes.”
Victor’s finger tightened.
Then a voice came from the hallway.
“Put the gun down.”
Ryan.
I almost stopped breathing.
He stood near the staircase.
Hospital gown hidden beneath a stolen jacket.
One arm barely moving.
Blood had already begun seeping through his bandage.
Victor stared at him.
“You really are hard to kill.”
Ryan smiled weakly.
“Runs in the family.”
Victor aimed the gun at him.
Ryan lifted his good hand.
“I brought the real ledger.”
He held up the black book.
My heart stopped.
That wasn’t possible.
Police had the real ledger.
Then I understood.
Another fake.
Victor didn’t.
He stepped toward Ryan.
“Give it to me.”
Ryan tossed it across the floor.
Victor bent slightly to grab it.
Dad threw himself sideways, crashing into Victor’s legs.
The gun fired.
Mom screamed.
I dropped.
Ryan lunged.
The front windows shattered as officers stormed in.
“POLICE! DROP THE WEAPON!”
Victor tried to raise the gun.
Ryan kicked it away.
Officers tackled Victor.
I crawled toward Dad.
“Dad!”
He was breathing.
The bullet had gone into the floor.
Mom dropped beside us.
For several seconds, all three of us held each other.
Then I heard Ryan collapse.
I looked across the room.
He was on his knees.
Blood spread across his shirt from his reopened wound.
Medics rushed toward him.
Victor was dragged upright in handcuffs.
He looked at me.
Even then, he smiled.
“You think this ends because I’m arrested?”
I stood.
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t afraid of him.
“No.”
May you like
His smile faded slightly.
“It ends because nobody is protecting your secrets anymore.”
