Chapter 18 - Back to the Pool
I went back to the villa three weeks after the punch.
Not alone.
Mara parked two surveillance vehicles nearby. Camille threatened to prosecute me personally if I broke the plan. Daniel, still wearing a shoulder brace, insisted on coming and was denied.
I wore a wire beneath a loose black blouse.
Lily remained at the hospital with Emily and an armed officer.
Leaving her felt wrong.
Going felt necessary.
The villa had reopened for private events.
The balloon arch was gone.
The pool was clean.
No blood.
No floating glass.
No sign that my life had split open there.
Thomas stood beside the water.
He looked older than in photographs.
Gray hair. Lean face. Eyes that resembled mine enough to make me angry.
"You came."
"I said I would."
"You brought police."
"I said I would do that too."
He smiled faintly. "Good."
I stopped ten feet away.
"Where are the certificates?"
"Safe."
"And proof Richard killed Laura?"
"Safe."
"Then give them to Mara."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because Richard will bargain."
"He already is."
"Exactly."
"You want revenge."
"I want consequence."
"You killed Victor."
Thomas's face changed. "No."
"His blood was on your hands."
"Because I tried to stop the bleeding."
"Richard says you shot him."
"Richard killed Laura."
"That does not answer me."
Thomas looked at the pool.
"Victor pulled the gun."
"Who fired?"
"Richard."
My pulse jumped. "Richard was there?"
"Yes."
"After he claimed he escaped?"
"He never escaped. He followed us."
"Why?"
"He wanted the bearer certificates."
"And Victor?"
"Wanted the ledger."
"What happened?"
Thomas sat on a lounge chair.
"For thirty years, those men had been partners and enemies. Each knew enough to destroy the other. Victor admitted what he did to Sofia. Richard called him reckless. Victor laughed and said Richard had done worse to Laura."
My skin chilled.
"Did Richard confess?"
"He said, 'At least I had the courage to do it myself.'"
The wire beneath my blouse suddenly felt hot.
"Did you record that?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
Thomas touched his jacket. "Here."
I held out my hand. "Give it to me."
"Not yet."
"Thomas."
He looked at me.
"You hate me."
"I don't know you enough."
"That's worse."
"Yes."
He absorbed it.
"I took the money because I was weak."
"Yes."
"I hit Diane."
"Yes."
"I told myself staying away protected you."
"It protected you."
"Yes."
His honesty was almost unbearable.
Then he said, "I came back because Eleanor told me about the identity fraud."
"You hired Daniel."
"Yes."
"You let him use me as bait."
"No. That was his decision."
"Convenient."
"I told him to warn you."
"Did you?"
He looked away.
Not enough.
"What do you want now?" I asked.
"Mercer Development dissolved."
"That is not yours to decide."
"It was mine."
"Thirty years ago."
"They stole it."
"And you took payments."
"To stay silent. Not to surrender ownership."
"You participated in the lie."
His face hardened. "So did Eleanor."
"Yes."
"So did Diane."
"Yes."
"So did Victor."
"He's dead."
"So should Richard be."
There it was.
Not justice.
Vengeance.
I looked at the pool. "Did you bring me here to recruit me?"
"To ask you."
"For what?"
"Refuse the company. Refuse the trust. Let it collapse. Let the creditors tear it apart."
"I already planned independent restitution."
"That preserves Eleanor's name."
"It helps victims."
"It helps the Mercers look redeemable."
"I don't care how we look."
Thomas stared at me.
Then smiled. "That is why you were always different."
"Do not romanticize me. You abandoned me."
His face broke slightly. "I know."
A car door slammed beyond the hedge.
Thomas stood. "Who is that?"
I touched the wire. "Mara?"
No response.
Then Richard walked onto the patio.
My knees almost gave out.
He looked thinner. Tanned. A bandage crossed his forehead.
"Evie."
I stepped backward.
Thomas moved between us.
Richard laughed. "Still pretending to be her father?"
Thomas said, "You shouldn't be here."
"I escaped custody."
I almost laughed. "Of course you did."
Richard looked at me. "Your mother is blaming me for everything."
"She isn't wrong often enough to be impressive."
His face hardened. "You always had that mouth."
"You always had that cowardice."
Thomas lifted one hand. "Leave."
Richard reached inside his jacket.
My body froze.
"Gun," I said into the wire.
Police sirens erupted in the distance.
Richard pulled out not a gun, but a phone.
He tapped the screen.
A live video appeared.
Lily's hospital room.
My daughter sleeping.
A man in scrubs stood outside the door.
My blood stopped.
Richard smiled. "You brought police here."
I could not breathe.
"So I sent someone there."
Thomas lunged.
Richard dropped the phone.
I screamed, "No!"
The two men crashed into a table.
Mara and officers burst through the gate.
I grabbed the phone.
The live feed continued.
The man in scrubs entered Lily's room.
Emily turned.
He raised something.
I could not see what.
"Mara!"
She looked at the screen. "Call the hospital!"
I was already dialing.
The feed shook.
Emily disappeared from view.
Then another person stepped into frame.
Vanessa.
Still wearing a hospital bracelet from childbirth.
She hit the man from behind with a metal IV pole.
He fell.
The phone feed cut.
I sobbed.
Mara's officer shouted.
Richard was on the ground.
Thomas stood over him.
For one second, I thought Thomas would kill him.
Instead he stepped back.
Richard laughed from the concrete. "You don't have it in you."
Thomas looked at me.
"No."
Then at the police.
"But she does."
I understood.
Not killing.
Ending.
I handed Mara the phone.
"Arrest him."
When officers handcuffed Richard, he turned his head toward me and said my childhood nickname.
"Evie-bear."
For one second, I was seven years old again, sitting on his shoulders at a county fair while he bought Vanessa and me cotton candy. Memory tried to rescue him from evidence.
I let the memory exist.
Then I watched Mara tighten the cuffs.
"Don't call me that," I said.
May you like
Richard's face changed more at those four words than it had when the police arrived. He understood, finally, that losing control of the company was not his only loss. He had also lost the right to summon the version of me who once mistook dependence for love.
As officers led him away, I looked once at the pool and realized I was no longer afraid of the water. I was afraid of forgetting what it had shown me.
