Chapter 6
Thomas’s face changed.
Not fear.
Rage.
“Shut up, Diane.”
Lily started crying.
I kept my eyes on her.
“Sweetheart, look at me.”
She did.
“You’re okay.”
Thomas lifted the gun.
“She’s okay if everyone does what they’re told.”
Diane took another step.
“You said you wouldn’t involve Lily.”
Thomas laughed.
“You helped hide Claire’s child.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
Diane’s face twisted.
“I never put a gun near her.”
Thomas glanced at Nathan.
“Get the key.”
Nathan moved toward me.
I held the case tighter.
“Touch me and I throw it through that window.”
He stopped.
The warehouse was built along the river.
Broken windows overlooked black water.
Thomas’s jaw tightened.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
Lily sobbed.
My whole body screamed to grab her.
But Thomas was ten feet away.
Gun steady.
I needed time.
“Diane said my mother was murdered.”
Thomas smiled.
“Diane says whatever keeps Diane alive.”
“Was she?”
“Your mother was dying.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“She had cancer.”
“Who was the nurse you paid?”
For the first time, his eyes changed.
Tiny reaction.
But enough.
Diane whispered, “Her name was Susan Bell.”
Thomas swung the gun toward her.
“Last warning.”
Diane froze.
I looked at her.
“What did Susan do?”
“She increased Margaret’s medication.”
Thomas shouted, “Enough!”
Lily screamed.
I took one step forward.
He pointed the gun back at me.
“Stay there.”
Diane continued anyway.
“She was supposed to keep Margaret sedated until Thomas found the drive.”
My heart pounded.
“Did she overdose my mother?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s a lie.”
“I don’t know if it killed her!”
Thomas laughed bitterly.
“She was dying in days anyway.”
The words hit me like a physical blow.
My mother.
Sitting in bed.
Weak.
Trying to tell me something.
I remembered one night she squeezed my hand.
Ryan, she whispered.
I need you to—
Then Diane entered with medication.
Mom stopped speaking.
I let Diane give it to her.
I thanked her afterward.
My stomach twisted.
“You killed her.”
Thomas sighed.
“No.”
“You paid someone to drug a dying woman.”
“I protected my family.”
“You destroyed mine.”
“No, Ryan. Your mother did that herself.”
I stepped toward him.
Nathan blocked me.
Thomas continued.
“Margaret was going to expose everything. The company would have collapsed. Hundreds of people would have lost jobs.”
“You stole the money.”
“I moved money.”
“To shell companies.”
“To keep projects alive.”
“And your yacht?”
He smiled.
“Perks.”
Diane looked disgusted.
“You told me it was temporary.”
“You enjoyed the money.”
“I never agreed to murder.”
“Neither did I.”
I looked at Nathan.
“And Claire?”
Nathan shrugged.
“She showed up at the worst possible time.”
“You beat an eight-year-old.”
“I pushed her.”
Lily cried harder.
I wanted to kill him.
Instead, I forced myself to breathe.
Thomas held out his hand.
“Key.”
“You don’t need it anymore.”
His eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“The box is open.”
Silence.
Diane stared at me.
Nathan cursed.
Thomas’s hand tightened around the gun.
“You’re lying.”
“I went to the bank this morning.”
“What was inside?”
“My mother’s letter.”
“What else?”
“DNA proof.”
“What else?”
I smiled.
That terrified him.
“You already know.”
He raised the gun.
“Where’s the drive?”
“Police.”
Nathan turned toward Thomas.
“We need to leave.”
Thomas ignored him.
“How much did they see?”
“Everything.”
“You stupid bastard.”
“No. The stupid part was hiding evidence in the same house where my daughter sleeps.”
Thomas’s breathing changed.
He looked at Diane.
“You led them here?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
“I came to stop you.”
He laughed.
“After twenty years?”
“I’m done.”
“You don’t get to be done.”
Diane’s eyes filled.
“I should have been done when Caroline was twenty-two and crying because she thought another woman would take Ryan from her.”
My head turned.
Caroline.
Diane looked at me.
“She came home from that university dinner obsessed with you.”
Thomas rolled his eyes.
“Not this again.”
Diane continued.
“She stole your phone. She deleted messages.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t know all of it.”
Thomas pointed the gun at her again.
“Diane.”
She looked at him.
“You’re going to prison.”
“Maybe.”
“So am I.”
She swallowed.
“But Lily doesn’t have to grow up inside this.”
Thomas’s smile vanished.
“What did you do?”
Diane looked at me.
“I told police where to find the old Whitmore ledgers.”
Nathan cursed.
Thomas fired.
The sound exploded through the warehouse.
Diane fell.
Lily screamed.
I moved.
So did Nathan.
Thomas’s gun shifted toward me.
I threw the key case.
Not at the window.
At his face.
He flinched.
I lunged.
Nathan grabbed me.
We crashed to the floor.
Another gunshot.
Glass shattered.
Lily crawled beneath a table.
“Run!” I screamed.
She ran.
Nathan punched me.
I drove my elbow into his throat.
He rolled away choking.
Thomas grabbed the key case.
Then police sirens erupted outside.
His face drained.
Nathan stared toward the doors.
“You said they weren’t following him!”
“They weren’t.”
I understood.
Diane.
She had led them.
Thomas seized Lily before she reached the exit.
“No!”
He wrapped one arm around her and pressed the gun against my four-year-old daughter’s side.
Everything stopped.
Police shouted from outside.
Thomas dragged Lily backward.
“Tell them to stay out!”
“Thomas.”
“Do it!”
I raised my hands.
“Lily, look at Daddy.”
She was shaking so hard her teeth clicked.
“You’re okay.”
“No, I’m not.”
The words broke me.
“You will be.”
Thomas backed toward a side door.
Nathan crawled toward him.
“Dad.”
“Stay down.”
“We can still get out through the river gate.”
Thomas nodded.
“Move.”
Nathan stood.
Then Diane groaned.
She was alive.
Blood spread across her shoulder.
Thomas looked at her.
For half a second.
That was enough.
Lily bit his arm.
Hard.
He yelled.
She dropped.
I charged.
The gun fired.
Pain tore across my side.
I hit Thomas with everything I had.
We crashed against a metal railing.
The gun fell.
Nathan lunged for it.
Diane kicked it away.
Weakly.
But enough.
Police stormed the warehouse.
“Down!”
Nathan raised his hands.
Thomas tried to run.
I grabbed Lily and covered her body with mine.
She screamed into my chest.
Officers tackled Thomas near the river door.
He fought.
Cursed.
Threatened everyone.
Then handcuffs closed around his wrists.
For the first time in decades, Thomas Whitmore had nowhere left to hide.
Paramedics treated Diane.
The bullet had passed through her shoulder.
I had only been grazed.
Lily had no physical injuries.
But when a medic tried to separate her from me, she screamed.
So I held her through every examination.
At the hospital, Caroline arrived under police escort.
She saw Lily.
“Baby.”
Lily turned away.
Caroline stopped.
The pain on her face looked real.
I didn’t enjoy it.
That surprised me.
I thought I would.
Instead, I felt empty.
Caroline looked at me.
“Can I hold her?”
I looked at Lily.
She shook her head.
“No.”
Caroline covered her mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
Lily clung tighter to me.
Caroline began crying.
“I’m so sorry.”
I wanted to tell her sorry wasn’t enough.
But Lily was listening.
So I only said, “Not now.”
Alvarez came into the room.
“Thomas and Nathan are in custody.”
“And Diane?”
“Surgery.”
“Caroline?”
He looked at her.
“We’re still investigating.”
Caroline nodded.
“I’ll tell you everything.”
I stared at her.
“Everything?”
“Yes.”
“No more half-truths?”
“No.”
Alvarez pulled up a chair.
Caroline took a breath.
Then looked at me.
“The Harbor sale wasn’t only about Dad’s debts.”
“What else?”
She swallowed.
“It was supposed to erase a company.”
“What company?”
“Bell Medical Consulting.”
The nurse.
Susan Bell.
My stomach tightened.
Caroline continued.
“Dad paid her through a chain of Harbor contractors.”
“To drug my mother?”
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
“Not then.”
“When did you find out?”
“Six weeks ago.”
The same time she claimed she discovered Emma was alive.
I understood.
Everything had surfaced at once.
Claire.
Emma.
The trust.
The murder evidence.
The sale.
“So you imprisoned Claire to close Harbor before the records were exposed.”
Caroline nodded through tears.
“I thought if I could close the deal, Dad would leave us alone.”
“You chose him.”
“I chose Lily.”
“No.”
My voice hardened.
“You used Lily.”
She flinched.
“You used her trust rights. You used her bedroom. You used our home.”
“I know.”
“You could have called police.”
“My father said he would kill Claire.”
“And you helped him lock her inside a wall.”
“I thought hiding her there kept her alive.”
Claire’s voice came from the doorway.
“No.”
We turned.
She stood with Emma beside her.
“You kept me quiet.”
Caroline looked at Emma.
The little girl immediately moved behind Claire.
Caroline broke.
“I’m sorry.”
Claire stared at her.
“For which year?”
Caroline looked confused.
Claire stepped closer.
“For the year you stole Ryan’s messages?”
Caroline cried harder.
“For the year your mother threatened me?”
Silence.
“For the year Margaret found us and you begged her not to tell Ryan?”
Ryan’s chest tightened.
Caroline whispered, “Please.”
Claire didn’t stop.
“For the three days you kept my daughter in darkness?”
Emma squeezed her mother’s hand.
Caroline lowered her head.
Claire looked at me.
“There’s one more thing.”
I almost laughed from exhaustion.
“Of course there is.”
She reached into her bag.
A letter.
Not from my mother.
From Caroline.
Dated nine years earlier.
Claire handed it to me.
I opened it.
Ryan will never choose you.
If you contact him, I will make sure you lose Emma.
I looked at Caroline.
“You said you thought Emma was dead.”
Caroline’s face went blank.
There it was.
The final lie.
May you like
Claire whispered,
“She always knew.”
