Chapter 6
Dad grabbed Lily and pulled her away from the door.
I reached for the kitchen fire extinguisher.
The handle turned.
Someone was trying to enter.
“Police!” Dad shouted.
The person outside kicked the door.
The chain snapped.
Daniel Mercer stepped through the smoke wearing a firefighter’s jacket.
He held a knife in one hand.
“Give me the key.”
I sprayed the extinguisher into his face.
Daniel cursed and swung blindly.
Dad pushed Lily behind the kitchen counter and charged him.
They crashed into the wall.
The knife fell but Daniel punched Dad in the throat.
I grabbed the knife and kicked it across the room.
Daniel seized my hair.
“You ruined everything.”
“No,” I gasped. “Your family did.”
Lily picked up a metal lamp and struck his arm.
Daniel released me.
He turned toward her.
Dad tackled him from behind.
Seconds later, officers rushed into the apartment.
They forced Daniel to the floor and handcuffed him.
The smoke was artificial.
He had planted two devices in the hallway and triggered the alarm remotely.
His firefighter’s jacket had been stolen that morning.
Daniel smiled while police dragged him away.
“You still don’t know what’s in the unit.”
Torres searched him.
In his pocket, she found a second brass key.
It matched Lily’s.
Police took us to the station.
Dad had a bruised throat, and I had a cut near my hairline.
Lily was physically unharmed.
But she sat in my lap like a much younger child.
“I hit him,” she whispered.
“You protected us.”
“What if I hurt him badly?”
“You stopped him from hurting Grandpa.”
She began to cry.
I held her until the shaking passed.
That afternoon, Torres opened the storage unit.
She allowed Maya to accompany her as my representative.
Inside were boxes of financial records dating back twenty years.
Victor had hidden proof that Diane participated in his crimes.
She had helped create fake accounts and move stolen retirement money.
There were also photographs of Dad, me, and Lily.
Some had been taken before I met Ryan.
Diane had followed my life for years.
The final box held letters between Diane and Ryan.
The earliest letter was dated four months before Ryan approached me at a charity event.
Diane had told him where I worked.
What coffee I ordered.
What books I liked.
She had taught her son how to become the man I would trust.
I read the letters alone.
Ryan had resisted at first.
Then Diane promised him a share of my inheritance.
After our wedding, his letters changed.
He complained that I trusted Dad too much.
He suggested having a child because it would make leaving harder.
Lily’s birth had been part of his calculation.
I became sick in the station bathroom.
Maya waited outside.
When I returned, she closed the file.
“You don’t have to read the rest.”
“Yes, I do.”
The final letter had been written two weeks earlier.
Ryan told Diane he wanted to stop.
For one brief second, hope betrayed me.
Then I read the next sentence.
He did not want to stop because he loved me.
He wanted more money.
He threatened to expose Diane unless she gave him half of everything.
That was why Diane attacked me.
The plan was collapsing.
Ryan had become greedy.
Diane had become desperate.
And I had walked into the hallway while they were fighting over my life.
The storage unit also contained a ledger listing every stolen account.
Some of the money belonged to families Dad’s old company had employed.
Dad stared at the names.
“I thought the government recovered everything.”
“They didn’t,” Torres said.
The missing funds had been hidden for years.
Diane’s control of my inheritance was only part of a larger plan.
She wanted to move all the stolen money through my accounts.
If investigators discovered it, I would appear responsible.
“She wasn’t only going to kill me,” I said. “She was going to destroy my name.”
Torres nodded.
The evidence was strong enough to bring additional charges against Diane, Ryan, Daniel, and Holloway.
But one problem remained.
A page had been torn from the ledger.
The missing page contained the password to an overseas account holding millions.
Daniel refused to reveal it.
Diane claimed it did not exist.
Ryan offered information in exchange for a reduced sentence.
The prosecutor agreed to hear him.
During the interview, Ryan looked directly at me through the observation window, though he could not see me.
“My daughter has the password,” he said.
My heart began pounding.
Ryan continued.
“Diane hid it in something she gave Lily.”
I thought of every birthday gift and every piece of jewelry.
Then Lily spoke beside me.
“My music box.”
The music box was still inside our house.
Torres sent officers to retrieve it.
They found the front door open.
The music box was gone.
May you like
On Lily’s bedroom wall, someone had written a message in red paint.
ONE DAUGHTER FOR ANOTHER.
