Chapter 8
Captain Harris pointed his gun at Daniel.
“Give me the flash drive.”
Daniel moved in front of the children.
Vanessa whispered, “He’ll kill all of us.”
Harris smiled.
“Not if you cooperate.”
“You closed Rachel’s case,” Daniel said.
“I signed a report. The medical examiner called it an accident.”
“You buried evidence.”
“There was no evidence until your daughter found that phone.”
Sophie gripped Daniel’s hand.
Harris glanced at her.
“That child has caused everyone a great deal of trouble.”
Vanessa stepped toward him.
“Leave them alone. I know where the drive is.”
Daniel turned sharply.
She ignored him.
“It’s in Rachel’s grave.”
Harris narrowed his eyes.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Rachel hid everything where Victor would never search.”
Daniel realized Vanessa was lying.
She was trying to draw Harris away from the girls.
Harris ordered them into the cruiser.
He drove them back toward town while Vanessa gave directions to the cemetery.
Grace sat beside her mother in the back seat.
Their shoulders almost touched, but neither knew what to say.
Sophie leaned against Daniel.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“For finding the phone.”
He held her face gently.
“You found the truth. None of this is your fault.”
At the cemetery, Harris forced them out.
Dawn light stretched across Rachel’s grave.
Daniel’s knees weakened when he saw her name.
Rachel Mercer.
Beloved wife and mother.
Vanessa pointed to a stone angel nearby.
“The drive is inside the base.”
Harris approached it carefully.
“Get it.”
Vanessa knelt beside the statue.
Daniel watched her hands.
She found a loose stone and reached into the opening.
Then she threw dirt into Harris’s eyes.
Daniel tackled him.
The gun fired.
The bullet struck the angel and sent stone fragments flying.
Vanessa grabbed the weapon.
Harris kicked Daniel away and reached for a second gun strapped to his ankle.
A shot rang out.
Harris collapsed.
Detective Torres stood at the cemetery entrance.
Blood ran from a cut above her eye.
Evelyn supported herself against the gate beside her.
Police vehicles raced up behind them.
Torres had escaped through an upstairs window. Evelyn had survived by pretending to be unconscious.
For one moment, Daniel believed it was over.
Then Torres’s phone rang.
Victor appeared on a video call.
He was inside Daniel’s house.
Flames burned behind him.
“You took my officer,” Victor said. “So I took something of yours.”
The camera turned.
Daniel’s younger brother, Michael, was tied to a chair.
Daniel had not known Michael was back in the country. They had not spoken in nearly a year after an argument about Rachel’s death.
“Daniel,” Michael said urgently. “Don’t give him anything.”
Victor struck him.
Sophie cried out.
“Uncle Michael!”
Victor looked into the camera.
“Bring the real drive to the Mercer building by noon. Come alone.”
The call ended.
Torres immediately ordered officers to Daniel’s house.
Daniel looked at Vanessa.
“How did Victor know Michael was there?”
She looked confused.
“He shouldn’t have.”
Evelyn stepped closer.
“Michael called me yesterday. He said he found proof Rachel’s death was connected to Daniel’s company.”
Daniel’s anger returned.
“What proof?”
Evelyn handed him an envelope Michael had mailed her.
Inside was a photograph of Victor meeting someone in the Mercer Construction parking lot.
The other person’s face was partly hidden.
But Daniel recognized the watch.
He had given it to his father, Charles, on his seventieth birthday.
His father had claimed to be in Europe when Rachel died.
Daniel turned the photograph over.
May you like
Michael had written five words on the back.
DAD ORDERED RACHEL TO BE SILENCED.
