Chapter 7
I did not go to the cabin alone.
But Ryan needed to believe I had.
Detective Alvarez placed a tracking device inside my coat and a small microphone beneath my collar.
Officers followed several miles behind me with their lights off.
Charles gave me the key to the cabin.
He also gave me a warning.
“There is a storm cellar beneath the kitchen. Diane knows a second way out through the woods.”
Snow had begun falling again when I reached Lake Mercer.
The cabin stood in darkness except for one yellow light above the porch.
Diane’s car was parked beside it.
I stepped out slowly.
“I’m here!” I called.
The front door opened.
Ryan appeared with the knife in his hand.
“Leave your phone in the car.”
I placed it on the driver’s seat.
Then I walked toward him.
He looked terrible.
His hair was wet with sweat.
There was a bruise on his cheek from the fight with Victor.
“Where are Vanessa and Noah?”
“Inside.”
“Let me see them.”
“Sign the statement first.”
He pulled me into the cabin and locked the door.
Diane stood near the fireplace.
Her white Christmas dress had been replaced by an old sweater and black pants.
She looked calm.
Too calm.
A document waited on the table.
It said I had willingly transferred our savings and knowingly signed the loan papers.
It also said Diane had never attacked me.
“Sign,” she ordered.
“Where is the baby?”
Diane lifted the knife from Ryan’s hand.
“Do as you’re told for once.”
Ryan flinched.
“Mom, we agreed no one would get hurt.”
“She called the police. She humiliated us. She froze the money.”
“We can still leave.”
“With what?” Diane shouted. “Victor’s people will find us before morning.”
A cry came from beneath the floor.
Noah.
I ran toward the kitchen.
Ryan caught me around the waist.
“Stop fighting!”
I drove my elbow backward and struck his ribs.
He lost his grip.
I reached the cellar door.
It was locked from the outside.
Diane rushed at me with the knife.
Ryan grabbed her wrist.
“Mom!”
She slapped him.
The sound was sharp and familiar.
“You ruined everything,” she hissed. “You were supposed to marry Emma, take the house, and leave quietly. Instead, you got that stupid girl pregnant.”
Ryan stared at her.
“You told me Emma needed to die.”
“And you failed twice.”
His face collapsed.
Until that moment, some part of him had still believed Diane loved him.
Now he finally understood.
He was only another tool.
“You cut the brakes,” he whispered.
“You loosened the gas pipe,” she replied. “And you changed the insurance policy. We are both guilty.”
“I changed it because you said Emma agreed.”
Diane laughed.
“You believed what you wanted to believe.”
I unlocked the cellar door using the key Charles had given me.
Vanessa was tied to a chair below.
Noah lay crying in a basket beside her.
I ran down the steps.
Ryan followed.
Diane shouted from the kitchen.
Then the cabin filled with smoke.
She had thrown burning papers onto the curtains.
Flames climbed the wall.
“She’s burning the evidence!” Ryan yelled.
“No,” Vanessa cried. “She’s burning us!”
I cut the ropes around Vanessa’s hands with a sharp piece of metal from the floor.
Ryan picked up Noah.
For one second, he held his son gently.
Then part of the ceiling crashed into the kitchen.
The front exit vanished behind flames.
We turned toward the narrow tunnel leading from the cellar into the woods.
Diane stood at its entrance.
She had a gasoline can beside her.
“If I lose everything,” she said, “none of you leave.”
She struck a match.
Ryan stepped in front of us.
“Mom, don’t.”
May you like
Diane smiled at her son.
Then she dropped the flame.
