Chapter 9 - The Price of a Brother
The first gunshot hit the ceiling.
The second never came.
Detective Ortiz dragged me behind the kitchen wall while Daniel crawled toward the rear window. Samuel Keene pressed himself flat beside the fireplace.
Outside, Evan screamed again.
“Claire!”
I moved.
Ortiz grabbed my coat.
“You step outside, you become leverage.”
“He’s my brother.”
“He already is leverage.”
The loudspeaker crackled.
“Bank key. Front porch. No police tricks.”
Ortiz’s radio remained dead.
“They’re jamming local frequencies,” Sam whispered.
Daniel pulled out his phone. “No service.”
I looked at the small brass key in Ortiz’s evidence pouch.
“If I give it to them—”
“They may kill Evan anyway,” Daniel said.
I hated him for saying it.
I hated him more because it was true.
Sam moved toward the back door.
“Where are you going?”
“There’s an old maintenance trail behind the cabins.”
Daniel stared. “You remember it after eleven years?”
“I’ve been here more recently than that.”
Another secret.
“Of course you have.”
Sam ignored me. “Trail comes out behind the bait shop. If I can reach Ortiz’s officers—”
“You assume they’re alive,” Daniel said.
Ortiz checked her sidearm. “Go.”
Sam disappeared into darkness.
I heard Evan coughing outside.
Then Marissa’s voice.
“Please! We did what you asked!”
I closed my eyes.
For all my hatred, hearing them terrified did something horrible to me. Marissa had helped steal Mom’s house. Evan had abandoned her. But they were still human beings kneeling somewhere beyond that door.
“Thirty seconds,” the loudspeaker said.
I looked at Ortiz.
“Can you copy the key?”
“No time.”
Daniel touched my face.
“Claire.”
“Don’t tell me not to.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
That surprised me.
“What were you going to say?”
“If you go out there, I go with you.”
Ortiz cursed both of us.
We compromised with a bluff.
She removed the brass key and placed it inside a metal coffee tin. Daniel set the tin on the porch using a broom handle while staying below the window line.
“Key’s outside!” I shouted.
Silence.
A man in black moved into the headlights.
He wore a face covering and gloves.
He picked up the tin.
At that exact moment, lights flared behind the cabin.
Sam had reached the bait shop and triggered an old emergency siren.
The attackers panicked.
Engines roared.
Ortiz’s radio snapped alive.
“Unit Three to Ortiz! We were blocked on access road!”
“Suspects moving east!”
The black vehicle tore away.
Another pickup followed.
Police pursued.
I ran outside before anyone could stop me.
Evan and Marissa were tied to two chairs near the tree line.
Evan’s face was bruised. Marissa had blood on her blouse, but it came from a cut on her shoulder, not a gunshot.
I dropped beside him.
“You idiot.”
He laughed and cried at once.
“You always did have bad timing.”
I slapped him.
Hard.
Everyone froze.
His cheek reddened.
“That was for Mom.”
He lowered his head.
“I know.”
Then I hugged him.
I hated myself for that too.
At the local hospital, Evan gave a statement under guard.
His story was uglier than I expected.
It began with debt.
He had lost money in a construction business. Marissa had hidden credit-card balances. They owed nearly two hundred thousand dollars.
Then Victor Sloane approached them.
“He said Mom needed asset planning,” Evan told us. “Said the house could be transferred before long-term-care costs ate it.”
“You believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
Marissa stared at her bandaged shoulder. “He offered us eighty thousand for helping.”
“Helping forge a deed.”
“He said Mom had already signed a power of attorney.”
“She hadn’t.”
“We know that now.”
I laughed bitterly. “You knew when you left her at a motel.”
Marissa cried.
Evan spoke. “That wasn’t the plan.”
“What was?”
“Mom was supposed to move into a private care facility. Sloane said he’d arrange it.”
“Then why didn’t you check?”
“I did. The facility said her reservation was canceled.”
“And you left her anyway.”
He covered his face.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Vale called.”
The room changed.
“He threatened you?”
“He said if we made noise, he’d send police our financial records and make it look like we stole everything.”
“You did steal everything.”
“Not everything.”
Evan looked at Daniel.
“The closing money wasn’t ours. Most of it moved exactly where Sloane told us.”
“North Harbor.”
“Yes.”
“Who drugged Mom?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who took her purse?”
“I think Vale.”
“Why didn’t you go to police?”
“We did. A detective met us in a parking lot.”
Ortiz leaned forward. “Name?”
“He called himself Detective Ross.”
“No badge?”
“He flashed one.”
Daniel asked, “Description?”
Evan described a tall man with a scar near his right ear.
Daniel went pale.
“Thomas Reddick.”
Ortiz looked at him.
“Who is that?”
“The missing marshal.”
Sam, who had been standing near the door, whispered, “Reddick is alive?”
Daniel nodded.
“He moved you into hiding.”
Sam’s face emptied.
“And then vanished.”
Evan looked confused. “He told us Daniel was running the whole thing.”
I stared at my husband.
“What exactly did he say?”
“That Daniel created the original secret accounts. That Frank found out. That Daniel killed him before he could expose it.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“Did you believe him?”
Evan looked at me.
“I didn’t know.”
“You knew enough to send me that text.”
“I wanted you to question him.”
“You also told me Dad wasn’t the hero. You were.”
Evan’s eyes filled.
“I waited twenty minutes to call the ambulance because Dad made me.”
“What?”
“He grabbed my shirt. He said if I called too fast, they’d know he hadn’t finished.”
“Finished what?”
Evan reached under his hospital gown and touched the scar on his chest.
“He gave me something.”
I froze.
“What?”
“A microfilm capsule.”
“Where is it?”
“I hid it.”
“For eight years?”
“I didn’t know what it was. Dad said only give it to Claire if they ever came for Mom.”
I stood so fast my chair fell.
“They came for Mom six weeks ago.”
“I was scared.”
“Where is it?”
Evan looked at Marissa.
She whispered, “It was in our safe.”
“Was?”
“When they kidnapped us, they made us open it.”
My heart sank.
Evan shook his head.
“But I switched it.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“With what?”
“A blank capsule.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
“Where’s the real one?”
May you like
Evan looked directly at me.
“Inside Dad’s grave.”
