Chapter 5
The body was not Dr. Cole.
It belonged to a private investigator named Benjamin Ross.
Mom recognized the name immediately.
“Your father hired him before he died.”
My father had passed away from cancer two years earlier.
I thought I knew every detail of his final months.
I was wrong.
Mara found a voicemail Benjamin had left for Mom the night before his death.
She played it for us.
“Helen, I found the connection between Diane Carter and Nathan Cole. Emma is in danger. Tell her the answer is inside her father’s blue ledger.”
Mom covered her mouth.
“The blue ledger,” she whispered. “I gave it to Ryan.”
“When?”
“After your father’s funeral. Ryan said he needed it to settle an old debt between their families.”
Anger burned through me.
Ryan had used my grief to steal evidence.
Mara questioned him again.
This time, he asked to speak with me.
I refused at first.
Then Mara said Ryan might reveal where Dr. Cole was hiding.
We met in an interview room with glass between us.
Ryan looked exhausted.
A bruise darkened his jaw.
“You need to tell police everything,” I said.
“I can’t.”
“You tried to steal our daughter’s trust.”
“I was going to put the money back.”
“You forged my name.”
“My creditors threatened Lily.”
“Who are they?”
Ryan looked toward the camera in the corner.
“My mother.”
I stared at him.
He explained that Diane had controlled his gambling accounts.
She loaned him money, then increased the debt whenever he tried to leave.
She convinced him that taking Lily’s trust was the only way to save us.
“And you believed her?”
“I was desperate.”
“You stood there while she dragged my mother across the floor.”
Tears filled his eyes.
“I was a coward.”
That was the first honest thing he had said.
“Where is the blue ledger?”
“Dr. Cole has it.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
Ryan leaned closer to the glass.
“Cole helped Mom create false evaluations for years. He signed the papers that had Claire committed. Benjamin discovered the truth, so Mom paid him to disappear.”
“Paid Cole or Benjamin?”
“Cole.”
A chill passed through me.
Ryan claimed Diane ordered Dr. Cole to frighten Benjamin and recover the evidence.
But something went wrong.
Benjamin died.
Cole panicked and took the ledger as protection.
“He called me yesterday,” Ryan said. “He wants two hundred thousand dollars and safe passage out of the country.”
“Where is he?”
Ryan closed his eyes.
“Saint Mark’s Church. Midnight.”
Mara organized a police operation.
At eleven fifty, officers surrounded the abandoned church.
I was supposed to remain in the car.
Then my phone rang.
Dr. Cole.
“If I see police, the ledger burns,” he said.
“How did you get my number?”
“Your husband gave Diane access to everything.”
“What do you want?”
“Come inside alone.”
Mara shook her head.
I knew it was dangerous.
But the blue ledger might prove Diane’s crimes, clear my name, and explain Benjamin’s death.
I entered through the side door wearing a concealed microphone.
The church was dark.
A man stepped from behind the altar.
Dr. Cole looked terrified.
He held a blue book in one hand and a lighter in the other.
“Your father knew,” he said. “He knew what Diane did to her husband.”
“Give me the ledger.”
“First, you promise to protect me.”
A door slammed behind us.
Diane walked down the center aisle with a gun.
“You always were weak, Nathan,” she said.
Cole dropped the lighter.
Diane aimed at him.
Then Ryan’s voice came from the darkness.
“Put the gun down, Mom.”
May you like
He had escaped police custody.
And he was standing directly behind me.
