Chapter 7
Samuel reached for his phone.
I stopped him from stepping into the hallway.
“Call Ruiz,” I whispered.
Mom’s footsteps moved slowly through the house.
“Daniel, I know you’re here.”
Her voice was calm.
That frightened me more than shouting would have.
Samuel sent our location to Detective Ruiz. Then we moved toward the bedroom’s second door, which opened into Dad’s old office.
The handle turned before we reached it.
Patrick Cole stepped inside.
He carried no visible weapon, but his size blocked the exit.
“You should have stayed out of old business,” he said.
Samuel moved in front of me.
“You helped conceal a homicide.”
Patrick shrugged.
“Robert fell. The rest was poor judgment.”
“Forty minutes of poor judgment?” I asked.
His eyes narrowed.
“So Olivia talked.”
Mom entered behind him with the gun pointed at my chest.
For a moment, none of us moved.
She looked tired, not sick.
There was no weakness in the hand holding the weapon.
“Give me the recorder,” she said.
I held it inside my jacket pocket.
“Why did you come back?”
“I forgot something important.”
“The evidence?”
“You.”
The answer chilled me.
Mom closed the office door.
“Everything was manageable until you stopped behaving like my son.”
“I behaved like your bank account.”
“I fed you. I clothed you. I kept Nora from dragging you through years of scandal.”
“You kept me because Dad threatened to leave if you didn’t.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Nora told you that?”
“Dad did.”
I raised the recorder slightly.
“His confession and yours are both here.”
Patrick stepped toward me.
Samuel lifted a heavy brass lamp.
“Come closer,” he warned.
Patrick laughed.
“You’re an old lawyer.”
“An old lawyer with excellent aim.”
Mom tightened her grip on the gun.
“Enough. Daniel, put the recorder on the desk.”
I obeyed.
Her attention followed it.
That was the opening Samuel needed.
He hurled the lamp.
It struck Patrick’s shoulder.
I lunged at Mom as the gun fired.
The bullet tore into the wall.
We crashed against Dad’s desk.
Mom clawed my face and reached for the weapon.
Patrick grabbed Samuel by the throat.
Then sirens screamed outside.
Mom froze.
I knocked the gun beneath the desk.
Patrick released Samuel and rushed toward the window, but Detective Ruiz appeared on the other side with her weapon drawn.
“Don’t move!”
Officers flooded the hallway.
Within seconds, Patrick was on the floor in handcuffs.
Mom sat against the desk, staring at me.
“You called the police on your own mother.”
“You aimed a gun at your own son.”
“You’re not my son.”
The words came easily to her.
Maybe they always had.
Ruiz recovered the recorder and placed Mom under arrest.
As an officer pulled her to her feet, Mom looked at the family portrait lying on the bed.
“I gave that family everything.”
“No,” I said. “You demanded everything.”
She turned away.
The criminal investigation moved quickly after that.
Patrick admitted accepting money to delay the ambulance and alter the scene of Dad’s fall. He claimed he believed Dad was already beyond saving.
Medical experts disagreed.
Dad’s injuries had been serious, but immediate treatment would probably have saved him.
Mom was charged with manslaughter, obstruction, fraud, and attempted assault.
Patrick faced similar charges.
Olivia’s lawyer negotiated cooperation in exchange for a reduced sentence, but the arson remained impossible to excuse.
Three days later, Nora and I returned to what remained of her bookstore.
The lower floor was ruined.
Water had soaked hundreds of books.
The upstairs apartment was unlivable.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“For what?”
“All of this happened because Olivia wanted my trust.”
Nora shook her head.
“It happened because she made choices. You are not responsible for other people’s cruelty.”
No one had ever taught me that.
Mom had made me responsible for Dad’s affair, Olivia’s jealousy, her own unhappiness, and every bill she could not pay.
Standing in the ashes, I realized guilt had been the chain she used to keep me close.
Nora picked up a damaged picture frame.
Inside was a photograph of me at ten years old.
“I missed everything,” she said.
“You didn’t choose to.”
“I still missed it.”
I helped her wipe soot from the glass.
“We can’t get those years back.”
“No.”
“But maybe we can stop losing new ones.”
She looked at me.
Hope crossed her face carefully.
“I’d like that.”
Samuel called before we left.
The trust company had completed its emergency audit.
The original eight hundred thousand dollars had grown through investments.
More than one million remained.
But nearly three hundred thousand had been withdrawn using forged authorizations.
Most of it had gone to Mom and Olivia.
The final transfer was different.
Fifty thousand dollars had been sent every year to an unknown account in another state.
The account belonged to a twenty-four-year-old man named Ethan Cole.
Patrick’s son.
When Ruiz found his birth certificate, she called me personally.
Ethan’s mother was listed as Evelyn Hayes.
May you like
Mom had another child.
And she had been using my inheritance to support him.
