Chapter 7
Michael threw himself over me.
“Down!”
Glass exploded across the floor.
I screamed.
Another impact hit the wall.
Then another.
Michael dragged me behind the kitchen island.
“Stay down.”
“What is it?”
“I don't know.”
He grabbed his phone.
I could barely breathe.
My incision burned from the sudden movement.
Outside, an engine roared.
Headlights flashed through the trees.
Then disappeared.
Michael called 911.
Police arrived fourteen minutes later.
It felt like fourteen hours.
The object that broke the window wasn't a bullet.
It was a rock.
Wrapped around it was a plastic bag.
Inside the bag was another message.
LEAVE MICHAEL OR HE BURNS WITH YOU.
Detective Chen arrived after midnight.
She looked furious.
“How did she know this address?”
Michael shook his head.
“Only Rachel, you, and the hospital knew.”
“And whoever owns the property.”
“Rachel's parents.”
Detective Chen looked at us.
“Who arranged your stay?”
“Rachel.”
I saw the suspicion immediately.
“No.”
Michael said it before I could.
“Rachel has helped us.”
Detective Chen's expression didn't change.
“I'm not accusing anyone.”
“But you're thinking it.”
“I'm thinking Diane keeps learning information she should not have.”
That was true.
My stomach twisted.
Rachel had brought us the documents.
Rachel had warned us about Diane.
Rachel had offered the lake house.
And now Diane knew exactly where we were.
Michael called Rachel.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Detective Chen asked for her address.
Police went there.
Rachel wasn't home.
Her apartment door was unlocked.
Her phone lay on the kitchen floor.
My fear shifted instantly.
“She didn't betray us.”
Detective Chen nodded.
“That’s now one possibility.”
“What’s the other?”
“That someone wanted us to think she did.”
At three in the morning, they found Rachel's car.
Empty.
Near a twenty-four-hour gas station.
Security footage showed her entering the parking lot at 9:17 p.m.
A dark SUV pulled beside her.
Rachel stepped out of her car.
She appeared to recognize the driver.
Then she entered the SUV voluntarily.
It drove away.
The license plate was stolen.
“Who would she willingly go with?” I asked.
Michael rubbed his forehead.
“Family.”
The answer was obvious.
Gary.
Her father.
Her mother.
Diane.
Someone she trusted enough not to be afraid.
Detective Chen sent officers to Gary's house even though he lived two states away.
He was home.
Confused.
Furious.
And, according to police, genuinely terrified when they told him Rachel was missing.
That eliminated one person.
Not many.
At dawn, the police moved us again.
This time we were taken to a small furnished apartment owned by the county and occasionally used for protected witnesses.
Michael hated the idea.
I didn't care.
I wanted walls nobody in the Bennett family knew.
I wanted locks Diane had never touched.
I wanted Sophie.
Two days passed.
Rachel remained missing.
Paul remained missing.
Diane remained missing.
Then the forensic lab called.
Residue inside Richard's travel tumbler contained traces of digoxin.
Michael stared at Detective Chen.
“What is that?”
“A heart medication,” she said.
“Was my father taking it?”
“No.”
My hands went cold.
“In a high dose, what happens?”
Detective Chen answered carefully.
“It can cause nausea, confusion, abnormal heart rhythms, and death.”
Michael sat down.
“So my mother poisoned him.”
“The presence of digoxin strongly changes the investigation.”
“Did he die from it?”
“We may never be able to prove the exact concentration in his body.”
“But it was in his coffee cup.”
“Yes.”
“And Paul said he watched her put something into his coffee.”
“Yes.”
Michael's eyes filled.
“Then she murdered him.”
Detective Chen didn't correct him.
She didn't need to.
A warrant was issued for Diane on suspicion of murder.
The story exploded.
Reporters camped outside Diane’s house.
Bennett Development's board suspended Michael while auditors examined the company's finances.
My name appeared in headlines.
Pregnant Daughter-in-Law Accuses Wealthy Matriarch.
Family Empire Rocked by Murder Investigation.
Old Death Reopened After Staircase Assault.
I stopped reading.
Sophie was scheduled to come home Friday.
That was all I cared about.
Then Thursday afternoon, I received a message from an unknown number.
A photograph.
Rachel.
She was sitting in a chair.
Alive.
Her eyes were red from crying.
She held that day's newspaper.
Below the photograph was a sentence.
TELL MICHAEL TO BRING RICHARD'S FLASH DRIVE.
I called Detective Chen immediately.
She arrived with two federal agents.
Because the message crossed state lines and involved kidnapping, the case had expanded.
“We don't have the original drive,” Michael told them.
Detective Chen nodded.
“It's in evidence.”
“So whoever sent this doesn't know that.”
“Apparently not.”
I looked at Rachel's photograph.
“Can we trace the number?”
“It's already disconnected.”
One agent enlarged the image.
“There may be location clues.”
Behind Rachel was a concrete wall.
A metal shelf.
A faded red sign.
Only two letters were visible.
ET.
Michael stared.
“Wait.”
He took the phone.
“I know that sign.”
“Where?”
“An old Bennett Development warehouse.”
Detective Chen stood.
“Address?”
“Industrial park outside Masonville.”
“How long has it been unused?”
“Three years.”
“Who has access?”
Michael looked at her.
“My mother.”
Police surrounded the warehouse.
Diane wasn't there.
Rachel was.
Tied to a chair in a locked office.
Terrified but physically unharmed.
They found her shortly after midnight.
She had been blindfolded most of the time.
She never saw who drove her.
But she heard two voices.
One woman.
One man.
The woman was Diane.
Rachel was certain.
The man frightened her more.
Because she recognized him too.
When Detective Chen brought Rachel to see us the next morning, she looked exhausted.
Michael hugged her.
I had never seen him hug Rachel before.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“For what?”
“We thought maybe you told her about the lake house.”
Rachel pulled back.
“I did.”
We all froze.
“What?”
She started crying.
“I didn't mean to.”
Michael looked confused.
“How do you accidentally tell someone?”
“She called me before I went to the hospital.”
“Diane?”
Rachel nodded.
“She said she wanted to surrender.”
Detective Chen's expression sharpened.
“What exactly did she say?”
“She said she knew she had gone too far. She asked where Michael was because she wanted to apologize.”
“And you told her?”
“No.”
Rachel wiped her face.
“I told her I couldn't help because you were going somewhere she would never find.”
Michael closed his eyes.
“Rachel.”
“I know.”
“She asked where?”
“I said no.”
“Then how?”
Rachel looked ashamed.
“She guessed.”
My pulse quickened.
“What do you mean?”
“She said, ‘What, your parents’ old lake place?’”
“And?”
“I didn't answer.”
Michael stared at her.
“You didn't need to.”
Rachel nodded, crying harder.
“My silence told her.”
It was a mistake.
A terrible one.
But believable.
Detective Chen continued.
“Who was the man at the warehouse?”
Rachel's face changed.
Fear replaced guilt.
“Uncle Steven.”
Michael frowned.
“Steven?”
I had heard the name.
Diane’s younger cousin.
He had worked for Bennett Development years earlier.
Then Richard fired him.
Nobody ever told me why.
“Why would Steven help her?” Michael asked.
Rachel shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Detective Chen did.
Because Richard's flash drive contained payroll records.
Steven had been receiving payments from one of the shell companies for six years.
Even after leaving Bennett Development.
The stolen money had been supporting him.
Police searched his house.
Empty.
Now there were two fugitives.
Diane and Steven.
But Rachel gave detectives something more valuable.
While she was held at the warehouse, she heard Diane and Steven arguing.
“She said they had to get to ‘the original’ before Michael did.”
Michael frowned.
“The original what?”
Rachel didn't know.
Then she repeated another sentence.
“Steven said, ‘Richard hid it where he always hid everything from you.’”
Michael stared at her.
His face slowly changed.
I recognized the look.
He knew something.
“What?”
He stood.
“My father had a cabin.”
Detective Chen leaned forward.
“Where?”
“North of Pine Ridge.”
“Did Diane know about it?”
“She knew the cabin existed.”
Michael shook his head.
“But Dad had a hidden room under the workshop.”
I stared.
“You never told me that.”
“I haven't thought about it since I was a teenager.”
“What did he keep there?”
“Documents.”
He looked at Detective Chen.
“Cash sometimes.”
“And?”
Michael's face turned pale.
“Old recordings.”
We left under police escort.
The cabin was four hours away.
Detective Chen didn't want us there.
Michael insisted he could show officers the hidden entrance.
I refused to stay behind.
By sunset, we reached the property.
The cabin looked untouched.
Snow from an early storm covered the ground.
The workshop stood fifty yards behind the house.
Michael led detectives inside.
He moved an old workbench.
Lifted a section of flooring.
A narrow staircase descended into darkness.
Detective Chen went first.
We followed after officers cleared the space.
The hidden room was small.
Shelves.
Boxes.
A desk.
An old computer.
Michael searched.
Then stopped.
On the center of the desk sat a sealed envelope.
Fresh.
Not dusty like everything else.
Someone had been there recently.
Written across the front were two words.
FOR EMILY.
My blood went cold.
Michael looked at me.
“That wasn't my father's handwriting.”
May you like
I already knew whose it was.
Diane’s.
