Chapter 8
Ryan dragged me into the living room.
The gasoline bottle swung from his hand.
Police lights flashed through the windows.
“Tell them to leave,” he ordered.
“They won’t.”
He pressed the gun harder against my ribs.
“Then Lily watches you die.”
Mark stood in the hallway with Lily behind him.
“Let Claire go,” he said. “Take me instead.”
Ryan laughed.
“You’ve always wanted to be the hero.”
“I’m the one who has the financial records.”
“No. The police have them now.”
Ryan’s smile disappeared.
He had expected us to keep the safe-deposit box secret.
“You opened it?”
“Yes,” I said. “We heard your confession.”
His face twitched.
“Mom told me to scare your father.”
“You watched him die.”
“He was destroying everything!”
“He was protecting me.”
“He hated me from the beginning.”
“Because he saw what you were.”
Ryan struck me across the face with the gun.
Lily screamed.
The officers outside moved closer.
Ryan raised the gasoline bottle.
“One more step and this house burns.”
Then a voice came from the kitchen.
“Ryan.”
Ethan stood beside the broken window.
He looked older and thinner, but I recognized him immediately.
Ryan turned his gun toward him.
“You should be dead.”
“You tried twice.”
Ethan slowly raised his hands.
“You wanted the remaining evidence. I brought it.”
He held up a flash drive.
“Give it to me.”
“Let Claire and Lily leave.”
Ryan shook his head.
“Lily stays.”
“She isn’t yours.”
“She has my name.”
“She is a child, not your property.”
Ryan aimed at Ethan’s chest.
While his attention shifted, I drove my elbow into his stomach.
The gun fired.
The bullet struck the wall.
Mark rushed forward and pulled Lily into the safe room.
Ethan tackled Ryan.
The gasoline bottle fell and rolled beneath the table.
I kicked the gun toward the doorway.
Officer Grant burst through the window with two other officers.
Ryan grabbed Ethan by the throat.
“You ruined my life!”
“No,” Ethan gasped. “You did that yourself.”
Grant dragged Ryan away and forced him to the floor.
Handcuffs closed around his wrists.
I ran toward the safe room.
Mark opened the door.
Lily flew into my arms.
“Mommy!”
“I’m okay.”
She touched the red mark on my face.
“Did Daddy hurt you?”
“He can’t hurt us now.”
Behind us, Ryan began laughing.
“You still think this ends with me?”
Grant pulled him to his feet.
Ryan looked directly at Ethan.
“Tell Claire where you’ve really been.”
Ethan’s face changed.
Ryan saw it and smiled.
“He didn’t spend seven years hiding,” he said. “He spent five of them working for my mother.”
I stared at Ethan.
“Is that true?”
Ethan did not answer quickly enough.
Ryan laughed again as officers took him outside.
I waited until Lily was with a paramedic.
Then I confronted Ethan in the kitchen.
“You worked for Diane?”
“After they caught me, they gave me a choice.”
“What choice?”
“Help them move money or disappear permanently.”
“So you helped her?”
“I collected evidence.”
“For five years?”
“I was trapped.”
I wanted to believe him.
But I had believed Ryan for nine years.
Trust no longer came easily.
Officer Grant returned.
“Federal agents arrested four people connected to Diane’s companies. They also found records of payments sent to an account under Ethan’s name.”
Ethan looked down.
“The account was controlled by Diane.”
“Can you prove that?” Grant asked.
“Yes.”
Before he could explain, Nora called from the hospital.
She sounded panicked.
“Claire, Diane escaped.”
“What?”
“A woman dressed as a nurse helped her leave through a service elevator.”
Police had already started searching.
Then Nora said something worse.
“Diane came into my room before she left.”
“Did she hurt you?”
“No. She gave me a message.”
“What message?”
Nora’s voice trembled.
“She said Ryan was never in control. She said everything tonight happened exactly as she planned.”
Grant turned toward the window.
Across the street, a black sedan pulled away from the curb.
Officers ran outside, but it disappeared around the corner.
Ethan looked at me.
“She’s going to the lake house.”
May you like
“The police already searched it.”
“They searched the rooms,” he said. “They didn’t search beneath them.”
