Chapter 8
The city issued an alert for Diane.
Hospitals, airports, and bus stations received her photograph.
Hale believed the crash had been arranged by someone still loyal to her.
Ryan was placed in protective custody.
He agreed to lead police to the storage unit.
Mia, Elena, and I waited at the station.
At two in the morning, Hale called.
The storage unit was empty.
Someone had removed everything less than an hour before police arrived.
Security footage showed a woman wearing a hospital gown beneath a long coat.
Diane.
She had gone directly from the ambulance wreck to destroy the evidence.
But she had made one mistake.
A traffic camera captured the black SUV’s license plate.
It belonged to Grant Parker, Ryan’s older cousin.
Grant managed several of Diane’s hidden companies.
Police arrested him at his apartment.
He refused to cooperate until Hale showed him the evidence recovered from the accounting office.
Then Grant started talking.
Diane planned to leave the country.
Before leaving, she intended to collect money hidden inside Margaret Bell’s former mansion.
The mansion had been empty for years while Margaret’s distant relatives fought over ownership.
Diane believed nobody knew about the secret safe.
Ryan did.
He offered to take Hale there.
“You’re not going,” Elena told him when officers brought him past us.
Ryan stopped.
“I can help end this.”
“You could have ended it before you kidnapped Noah.”
“I was afraid of her.”
“So was your eight-year-old son. He still tried to protect Claire.”
Ryan lowered his eyes.
No apology could repair what he had done.
Hale took Ryan to the mansion under armed guard.
We were ordered to stay at the station.
Then Mia noticed something in a copy of Ryan’s notebook.
A sentence appeared beside Margaret Bell’s address.
Safe opens with Thomas’s blood.
“It isn’t a password,” Mia said. “It means a family member.”
Diane did not need Ryan to open the safe.
She needed Noah.
Elena ran toward the waiting room.
Noah was gone.
A side door stood open.
His police escort lay unconscious beside it.
Diane had entered the station disguised as a paramedic.
She had taken him again.
Elena screamed so loudly that officers rushed from every hallway.
Hale turned his convoy around.
We followed despite his orders.
Margaret’s mansion stood behind rusted gates.
The front door was open.
Inside, Ryan’s handcuffs lay on the floor.
One guard had been injured outside, and the second was missing.
Diane’s voice echoed from upstairs.
“You ruined everything!”
We found her in a bedroom with Noah and Ryan.
A large wall safe stood open.
Money and jewelry covered the floor.
Ryan was bleeding from his forehead.
Diane held the gun against Noah’s back.
“Let him go,” Elena said.
Diane looked at her with disgust.
“You raised him to be soft.”
“You never raised anyone. You controlled them.”
Police surrounded the room.
Diane dragged Noah toward an open balcony door.
Ryan moved between them.
“Take me instead.”
“You?” Diane sneered. “You failed me.”
“I did everything you asked.”
“And you still got caught.”
Ryan looked at Noah.
Then he rushed his mother.
The gun fired.
Ryan fell.
Elena pulled Noah away as officers tackled Diane.
This time, she could not escape.
I dropped beside Ryan.
Blood spread across his shirt.
He struggled to breathe.
“Is Noah safe?”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
Hale called for an ambulance.
Ryan caught my wrist, but his grip was weak.
“In the safe,” he whispered. “False wall.”
Officers searched it.
Behind a removable panel, they found the missing video, forged documents, and Diane’s emergency passport.
Paramedics carried Ryan away.
He was alive, but barely.
Diane watched from the back of a police car.
She showed no concern for her wounded son.
She only stared at me.
As the car pulled away, she smiled.
Mia soon discovered why.
Among the documents was a legal complaint prepared in my name.
It accused Elena of planning Ryan’s murder.
May you like
Diane had scheduled it to be sent to police that morning.
And attached to it was a recording of Elena saying, “If Ryan hurts Noah, I will kill him.”
