Chapter 8
The real ledger was in police custody.
Paula either did not know that or believed I could retrieve it.
Mara told me not to respond.
I responded anyway.
Prove my mother is alive.
A video arrived seconds later.
Mom sat tied to a chair inside an empty room.
Her lip was bleeding.
Behind her was a faded sign painted on a brick wall.
CARTER-HALE CONSTRUCTION.
I recognized the name from the old photograph.
The company’s first warehouse had been abandoned for years.
Police prepared a rescue operation.
Mara gave me a duplicate blue notebook and fitted me with another microphone.
This time, she made me promise not to enter the building until officers were in position.
I drove to the warehouse alone.
Paula called when I arrived.
“Leave your phone in the car.”
“If I do, how will you contact me?”
“I’m watching you.”
I looked at the broken windows.
Any one of them could hide her.
I left my phone under the driver’s seat, but the microphone remained beneath my collar.
The warehouse door opened.
Paula stood inside wearing the red coat.
She appeared completely calm.
“Show me the ledger.”
“Show me my mother.”
She led me through a long corridor.
Mom was tied to a chair in the center of the main room.
I started toward her.
Paula raised a knife.
“Stop.”
I froze.
“Give me the book.”
“Why are you doing this for Diane?”
Her expression changed.
“I’m not doing it for Diane.”
A second person stepped from behind a support beam.
Samuel Reed.
The injured worker from my father’s past.
He was older now and walked with a cane.
One side of his body moved stiffly.
“I’ve waited twenty-eight years for that ledger,” he said.
“You killed Benjamin?”
“No. Dr. Cole did.”
“You helped Diane frame me.”
“I helped myself.”
Samuel explained that the ledger contained proof of the construction cover-up.
He wanted money from Lily’s trust as compensation.
“My father should have reported the accident,” I said. “What happened to you was wrong. But Lily had nothing to do with it.”
“She inherited his money.”
“She is six years old.”
“Your father built her future on my broken body.”
Mom began crying.
“Samuel, Daniel paid every medical bill. He tried to make things right.”
“He paid for silence.”
Paula grabbed the false ledger from my hands.
She opened it.
Blank pages.
Her face darkened.
“You lied.”
“So did you.”
Paula lunged toward Mom.
I knocked the knife from her hand and pulled Mom’s chair backward.
Samuel swung his cane at me.
Before it struck, police crashed through the doors.
Paula ran.
Officer Grant chased her through the warehouse.
Samuel dropped his cane and raised his hands.
Then Mom shouted.
“Emma, look out!”
Paula had circled behind us.
She grabbed Lily’s grandmother by the throat and pressed a shard of glass against her neck.
“Tell them to lower their guns,” she said.
I looked at Mara.
She slowly lowered her weapon.
The other officers followed.
Paula dragged Mom toward an exit.
Then Samuel moved.
He struck Paula’s wrist with his cane.
The glass fell.
Officer Grant tackled her.
Mom collapsed into my arms.
Samuel stared down at Paula.
“I wanted justice,” he whispered. “Not another innocent person hurt.”
He was arrested with her.
As officers led him away, he stopped beside me.
“Your father left a letter for me,” he said. “Diane stole it.”
May you like
“Where is it?”
“Ask Claire what she found inside Thomas’s grave.”
