Chapter 8
Dad threw me to the floor.
The first gunshot shattered glass.
The second hit the wall behind Chloe's bed.
Madison screamed.
Security officers rushed toward the door.
"Stay down!"
Emergency lights painted the room red.
Chloe's heart monitor shrieked.
A nurse crawled beneath the window and pulled the curtain closed.
Dad covered me with his body.
Then a third shot rang out.
Farther away this time.
Someone shouted in the corridor.
"Suspect moving toward stairwell!"
Boots thundered past.
My ears rang.
Madison was on the floor beside Chloe's bed, holding Chloe's hand.
"She's bleeding!"
For one horrifying second, I thought Chloe had been shot.
Then the nurse checked her.
"The IV pulled out. She's okay."
Dad grabbed my face.
"Are you hit?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
The lights flickered back on.
Lauren entered with two officers.
"Shooter escaped through the service stairs."
Dad stood.
"Who was it?"
"Masked. Hospital cameras caught a male, approximately six feet."
"Jonathan?"
"Can't confirm."
Dad looked toward the shattered window in the door.
"This wasn't random."
No one disagreed.
Chloe started sobbing.
"He knows I talked."
The detective beside her said, "We're moving you to a secure location."
She shook her head violently.
"No police."
"Chloe—"
"No!"
Her reaction shocked everyone.
She looked at me.
"That's what my dad said. Don't trust anybody."
A terrible thought came to me.
"Price was a police officer."
Dad turned.
"And someone accessed sealed police records with his credentials."
Lauren nodded slowly.
"If Price had help inside the department..."
The detective in the room looked offended.
"Counselor, be careful."
"I'm being extremely careful."
Dad stepped between them.
"We protect Chloe privately."
"She is a material witness."
"And someone just fired into her hospital room."
The detective's jaw tightened.
He couldn't argue with that.
By dawn, Chloe had been moved to another Carter property under private protection.
Madison stayed beside her.
I went with Dad and Lauren to our apartment.
None of us slept.
At seven, Lauren received a call.
Detective Price was gone.
Not dead.
Gone.
He had disappeared from his guarded hospital room during the blackout.
An officer assigned to him had also vanished.
That confirmed our worst fear.
Price wasn't only a victim.
At least not anymore.
By noon, every major news network had the story.
FORMER BOSTON DETECTIVE MISSING AFTER WESTBRIDGE SCANDAL.
BUSINESS EXECUTIVE RICHARD BLAKE WANTED FOR QUESTIONING.
MERCER FINANCIAL CEO ALSO MISSING.
Dad turned off the television.
I sat at the table with Mom's letter.
I had read it so many times I almost knew it by memory.
One sentence kept bothering me.
If Emily finds it someday, I hope she understands why I chose Westbridge.
I looked up.
"Dad."
He was talking to Lauren.
"Why did Mom choose Westbridge?"
He frowned.
"What?"
"In the video. She said she hoped I'd understand why she chose Westbridge."
Dad sat across from me.
"She wanted you to go there someday."
"Why?"
"She loved the school before everything happened."
"That doesn't sound right."
He waited.
"Mom was being followed. Her friend died. You nearly died. Richard hated you. Jonathan threatened her. Why would she want me anywhere near that school?"
Dad's expression changed.
Lauren leaned over the letter.
"Maybe she didn't mean attending."
"What else could she mean?"
I looked at the school emblem printed on my notebook.
A shield.
Three towers.
Latin words underneath.
Veritas Ante Omnia.
Truth Before All.
Mom had circled those words in one of her yearbook photographs.
I grabbed my phone.
Noah answered sleepily.
"Emily?"
"I need your sister's yearbook again."
"Good morning to you too."
"Look for anything Mom wrote in it."
"Like signatures?"
"Anything."
Ten minutes later, Noah called back.
"My sister says old yearbooks are in a box at my parents' house. We're going over."
"Send pictures."
Dad frowned.
"What are you looking for?"
"I don't know."
That was the truth.
Two hours later, Noah sent photographs.
Most pages contained nothing useful.
Then one picture stopped me.
A page showing the original Westbridge library.
Mom had written in blue ink beside it.
Truth is where they taught us to bury it.
Underneath:
V + E.
Victoria and Evelyn.
I showed Lauren.
She zoomed in.
"Could mean anything."
"Or they hid something at school."
Dad stood.
"No."
"What?"
"If your mother hid evidence at Westbridge, whoever is behind this may already know."
"Then we need to find it first."
"Police can search."
"Which police?"
That stopped him.
Lauren looked at me.
"Where would two teenage girls hide something for twenty-five years?"
I thought about the photograph.
The original library.
Westbridge had renovated its library twelve years ago.
But part of the old building remained.
Noah called again.
"I found something else."
"What?"
"There's a handwritten note on a picture of the founders' hall."
He sent it.
Mom's handwriting.
THIRD TOWER. 17.
The Westbridge emblem had three towers.
Dad stared at the picture.
"What does seventeen mean?"
"Locker?"
"No lockers in Founders Hall."
"Room?"
"Room numbers start in hundreds."
Lauren zoomed in on the photograph.
Above the old library were three decorative stone towers.
The third contained the school bell.
I looked at Dad.
"Bell tower."
He hated the idea.
Which meant we were going.
Westbridge was closed because of the investigation.
Chairman Whitmore met us at a side entrance.
"What exactly are we looking for?"
"Something my mother may have hidden."
His expression softened.
"I remember Evelyn."
I stopped.
"You knew her?"
"I was a history teacher then."
That surprised Dad.
"You never mentioned that."
Whitmore looked uncomfortable.
"There are many things I wish I'd handled differently."
I filed that sentence away.
We climbed narrow stairs toward the bell tower.
Dust covered everything.
Nobody had used the stairs in years.
At the top was a circular room.
The old bell hung above us.
Seventeen.
I looked around.
There were numbers carved into wooden support beams.
Old maintenance markings.
14.
15.
16.
17.
"Here."
Beam seventeen stood against the far wall.
I ran my hand along it.
Nothing.
Dad checked the base.
Lauren examined the stone behind it.
Whitmore stared upward.
Then he whispered, "That wasn't there before."
A small metal plate had been screwed into the beam near the ceiling.
A guard climbed a ladder.
He removed it.
Inside was a narrow hollow space.
And inside that space was a plastic bag.
My pulse raced.
Lauren opened it carefully.
Documents.
A key.
And another cassette.
Dad whispered Mom's name.
The documents included photocopies of Blake Hospitality accounts.
The same shell companies.
The same payments.
But one page was different.
A handwritten list.
J. Mercer.
S. Price.
C. Blake.
R. Whitmore.
I stared at the last name.
Then slowly turned.
Chairman Robert Whitmore had gone pale.
Dad looked at him.
"Robert?"
Whitmore took one step backward.
Lauren's voice sharpened.
"What is this?"
He shook his head.
"I can explain."
A security guard moved toward him.
Whitmore raised both hands.
"I never hurt Evelyn."
Dad's face became terrifying.
"Nobody said you did."
Whitmore realized his mistake.
My skin went cold.
"How did you know this was about Mom?"
He looked at me.
For the first time, I didn't see the respected chairman.
I saw fear.
"Emily..."
"What did you do?"
He closed his eyes.
"I was young."
Dad moved forward.
"What did you do?"
Whitmore whispered, "I gave Richard the keys."
"Keys to what?"
"Your car."
The air left my lungs.
Dad stared at him.
"The night Victoria died?"
Whitmore nodded.
"I didn't know what they were planning."
"They?"
"Richard and Jonathan."
Dad grabbed Whitmore by the collar.
Security rushed forward.
"You gave them access to my car!"
"I thought they were going to scare you!"
"Victoria died!"
"I know!"
Whitmore broke down.
"I've lived with it every day."
Dad released him with disgust.
I picked up the old cassette.
"What's on this?"
Whitmore looked at it.
His face changed again.
"Where did you find that?"
"Why?"
"Because Evelyn showed me one like it the week before she died."
Everyone froze.
"What did she say?"
Whitmore swallowed.
"She told me it contained proof."
"Proof of what?"
"That Richard wasn't the person who ordered Victoria's death."
Madison's father again.
Maybe guilty.
Maybe not.
"Then who did?"
Whitmore looked at Dad.
"Charles Blake."
Richard's father.
Madison's grandfather.
Dad frowned.
"Charles died eight years ago."
Whitmore's eyes filled with fear.
"No."
May you like
He whispered it.
"No, he didn't."
