Chapter 4
Margaret ran toward the balcony.
I threw myself at her before she reached the fire escape.
We crashed against the railing.
The metal box slipped from her hands and landed on the balcony floor.
She clawed at my bandage.
Pain tore through my injured head.
“You ruined my son’s life!” she screamed.
“Your son ruined his own life.”
I shoved her away and reached for the box.
Margaret kicked it through the open railing.
It fell three floors and struck the alley below.
Papers scattered across the wet pavement.
I grabbed Margaret’s coat.
“What did you do?”
“What your grandmother should have done years ago.”
Ethan groaned inside the apartment.
Margaret twisted out of my grip and climbed onto the fire escape.
I followed her.
She descended two levels before losing her footing.
Her body swung over the alley.
One hand clung to the railing.
“Claire!”
For one terrible second, I considered letting her fall.
This woman had helped Derek deceive me.
She had attacked Ethan.
She had watched her son split my head open.
But I reached down and caught her wrist.
Her eyes widened.
“Pull me up!”
“Tell me where the ledger is.”
“I don’t know!”
My fingers began slipping.
“Then why does Robert think it’s here?”
“Because Evelyn told him it was!”
“Why?”
“To keep him away from you!”
That answer made sense.
Grandma may have invented the ledger to give Robert something to fear.
Margaret sobbed as her other hand grabbed the railing.
“Please.”
I helped her climb onto the landing.
The moment she was safe, she drove her shoulder into me.
I struck the wall and fell.
Margaret escaped down the stairs.
By the time I reached the alley, she was gone.
Ethan joined me, pressing a towel to the back of his head.
“You should be in a hospital,” I told him.
“So should you.”
We collected the papers.
The recorder had cracked, but the memory card remained intact.
One photograph was missing.
So was Grandma’s letter.
Margaret had taken them.
A black sedan turned into the alley.
Ethan pulled me behind a dumpster.
The car slowed beside the scattered documents.
Robert stepped out.
He found one of the bank statements and looked toward the fire escape.
“I know you’re here,” he called.
Ethan whispered, “Stay down.”
Robert removed a gun from beneath his coat.
My blood turned cold.
“You don’t have the ledger,” he said. “If you did, you would already know the truth.”
“What truth?” I shouted from behind the dumpster.
“That Evelyn lied to you.”
“She left a recording.”
“She was a desperate woman protecting her own crime.”
He moved closer.
“Your grandmother didn’t recover stolen money. She stole it herself.”
Ethan shook his head.
“Don’t listen.”
Robert continued.
“She used you and your brother as shields. Every time I demanded my money, she threatened to blame me for your parents’ deaths.”
“Then why did Derek marry me?”
“Because Evelyn died before telling us where she hid everything.”
Police sirens approached again.
Robert returned to the sedan.
Before getting in, he tossed a small envelope onto the pavement.
“Ask your brother why his name appears on that account.”
The car sped away.
I picked up the envelope.
Inside was a bank document dated six months earlier.
It showed a transfer of $600,000.
The money had been sent from an account in Grandma’s name to Ethan.
I looked at him.
“What is this?”
Ethan’s face tightened.
“I can explain.”
“Then explain.”
“Grandma asked me to hold it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She said it would protect you.”
“From what?”
“Derek.”
I searched his eyes.
He was hiding something.
“Did you know who Derek was before I married him?”
Ethan looked away.
That was my answer.
I stepped back.
“You knew.”
“Not everything.”
“How much?”
“I knew he was Robert’s son.”
My chest felt empty.
“You stood beside me at my wedding.”
“I tried to investigate him. Grandma begged me not to confront you without proof.”
“You let me marry a man sent to steal from me.”
“I thought he might actually love you.”
I laughed bitterly.
Then Ethan said the one thing that hurt more than Derek’s betrayal.
“Claire, there’s something else. Grandma didn’t die from a heart attack.”
“What are you saying?”
“I found her body that night.”
May you like
He met my eyes.
“Derek was in the apartment.”
