Chapter 6
Ryan held no weapon.
He raised both hands as he stepped into the faint light.
Diane swung the gun toward him.
“You ruined everything,” she said.
“No, Mom. You did.”
“You begged me to solve your debt.”
“I never asked you to destroy Emma.”
Diane laughed bitterly.
“You signed every document.”
Ryan looked at me.
“I know.”
The admission cut deeper than another lie.
Outside, police waited for Mara’s signal.
But Diane stood too close to me.
One wrong move could get someone killed.
Dr. Cole clutched the blue ledger against his chest.
“You said Benjamin would only be scared,” he told Diane.
“He should have minded his own business.”
“You killed him.”
Diane’s eyes hardened.
“You pushed him.”
Cole began trembling.
“He tried to stop me from taking the ledger.”
“And then you left Emma’s earring in your car, just as I instructed.”
I felt sick.
The microphone under my shirt was capturing everything.
Diane had just confessed to framing me.
But confession meant nothing if we did not survive.
Ryan took another step.
“Let Emma leave.”
“She’s the reason you became weak.”
“No. I was weak long before I met her.”
Diane’s face twisted with rage.
She pointed the gun at me.
Ryan moved instantly.
He shoved me behind a wooden pew.
The gun fired.
A bullet struck the wall.
Police rushed through every entrance.
Diane fired again, but Officer Grant tackled her before she could aim.
Dr. Cole dropped to the floor.
Ryan collapsed beside the altar.
Blood spread across his shoulder.
I stared at him, unable to move.
“Emma,” he gasped. “The ledger.”
Dr. Cole tried to crawl toward a side door.
Mara blocked him.
“It’s over, Doctor.”
He began crying.
“I can explain.”
“You can explain it at the station.”
Paramedics carried Ryan out.
Diane and Dr. Cole were arrested.
The blue ledger was finally placed in evidence.
It contained twenty years of transactions.
Bribes.
False medical evaluations.
Secret payments.
And a check written to a mechanic three days before Diane’s husband died.
Claire’s suspicion had been right.
Diane had arranged the crash.
But the ledger also contained something I did not expect.
My father had paid Diane one hundred thousand dollars twelve years earlier.
Beside the payment, he had written one sentence.
FOR EMMA’S SAFETY.
Mom looked devastated when I showed her.
“What did Dad buy from Diane?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
But she would not meet my eyes.
“Mom.”
Her shoulders fell.
“Your father made me promise never to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
She glanced at Lily, who was asleep in the next room.
Then she whispered the truth.
Ryan and I had not met by accident.
Our fathers had once been business partners.
Diane had threatened to expose something my father had done unless he paid her and kept me away from the Carter family.
Years later, Ryan found me anyway.
“Your father begged me to stop the wedding,” Mom said. “I thought he was judging Ryan because of Diane.”
“What was Diane threatening to expose?”
Mom opened her purse and removed an old photograph.
It showed my father standing beside Benjamin Ross.
Between them was a young woman I recognized.
Diane.
May you like
On the back, my father had written:
The night we buried the truth.
