Chapter 7 - THE PRICE OF LILYRebecca wanted three things.
The original Ashford Trust access phrase.
Every copy of Daniel’s evidence.
And a public statement clearing her of wrongdoing.
She gave us four hours.
Daniel wanted to hunt her himself.
Hannah wanted something worse.
“Give me a gun.”
“No,” Marcus said.
“Then get out of my way.”
Daniel caught her arm.
“Hannah.”
She turned on him.
“Our daughter has been kidnapped by the woman who tortured you, murdered people, poisoned Grant’s father, and framed me. Do not tell me to calm down.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
“I was going to say I’m coming with you.”
For the first time since Daniel returned, their anger pointed in the same direction.
My father was transported to a secure hospital under another name.
He remembered the Ashford phrase.
He refused to tell me.
“Rebecca will kill Lily after she gets it.”
“She’ll kill her if we don’t.”
“No.”
His weakened hand gripped mine.
“She won’t hurt that child until she has the trust.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Rebecca always believes she can still win.”
Audrey entered.
“My father says he knows a property Rebecca used years ago.”
Charles had finally begun telling everything.
There was an old Sinclair horse farm near Lake Geneva.
Audrey’s mother loved it.
After Victoria’s death, Rebecca secretly purchased surrounding land through a shell corporation.
“She keeps things where they hurt,” Audrey said.
That sentence stayed with me.
We searched satellite feeds.
Marcus found tire movement.
Recent.
One vehicle.
Then two.
A private airstrip nearby had recorded an unscheduled helicopter landing ninety minutes earlier.
We had a location.
But Rebecca had cameras.
Heat sensors.
Armed contractors.
A direct assault could get Lily killed.
So we gave Rebecca what she expected.
Me.
Alone.
I drove to the property in my father’s vintage Mercedes with no visible weapons.
The gate opened automatically.
Rebecca waited inside the old stable.
Lily sat beside her.
Unhurt.
Button in her lap.
My chest loosened half an inch.
“Grant!”
She tried to run toward me.
Rebecca caught her shoulder.
“Stay.”
Lily froze.
I had never hated anyone more.
“Let her go.”
“Phrase first.”
“Proof you’ll release her.”
Rebecca smiled.
“You’re bargaining badly.”
“Maybe I’m distracted by the four-year-old you kidnapped.”
She looked almost offended.
“I haven’t harmed her.”
“You sedated my dog.”
“He bit one of my men.”
“Good.”
Lily almost smiled.
Rebecca did not.
She gestured to a chair.
“Sit.”
I did.
“Your father always believed you were stronger than me,” she said.
“Is this where you explain your childhood?”
Her eyes sharpened.
“You think pain becomes irrelevant because it happened long ago?”
“No. I think pain doesn’t excuse becoming a murderer.”
“You sound like Richard.”
“He’s alive, by the way.”
That struck her.
She recovered quickly.
“I assumed.”
“You kept him prisoner.”
“I kept him useful.”
“That’s what Nathan said about people.”
“Nathan lacked imagination.”
“You had him killed?”
She smiled.
“Charles killed him.”
“Because you arranged it.”
Her expression told me I was right.
Every move nested inside another.
“Where is the Ashford Trust?” I asked.
“Distributed through protected accounts.”
“Victoria’s money.”
“Victoria inherited wealth she never earned.”
“And you earned it?”
“I survived for it.”
That was Rebecca’s religion.
Survival meant entitlement.
Lily looked down at Button.
Her thumb moved across the rabbit’s torn ear.
Then I noticed something.
She was squeezing the left paw.
Three times.
Pause.
Three times.
Pause.
A game?
No.
Daniel had taught her something.
I remembered him asking whether the rabbit transmitted.
Maybe Button still held another function.
Rebecca held out a phone.
“Call Richard.”
I dialed.
My father answered.
“Grant?”
“She has Lily.”
“I know.”
Rebecca took the phone.
“Richard.”
Silence.
Even after everything, her face changed hearing his voice.
There had once been love there.
Maybe some damaged fragment remained.
“Give me the phrase,” she said.
“No.”
“I have the girl.”
“You always choose the smallest person in the room.”
Rebecca flinched.
“Don’t moralize.”
“You killed Victoria because she was brave enough to expose you.”
“She was going to destroy Charles.”
“She was going to save him.”
Rebecca’s jaw tightened.
My father continued.
“You don’t love people, Rebecca. You possess them.”
She ended the call.
For the first time, her calm cracked.
She grabbed Lily.
Lily screamed.
I stood.
“Take your hand off her.”
Rebecca pulled a pistol.
“Sit down.”
I sat.
Lily started crying.
Then Button beeped.
Rebecca froze.
“What was that?”
Lily hugged the rabbit.
“He sneezed.”
I almost laughed.
Rebecca ripped Button from her hands.
“No!”
Lily kicked her.
Hard.
Rebecca stumbled.
I moved.
A gunshot exploded.
Pain burned across my side.
I hit Rebecca.
The pistol flew.
Lily ran.
“Go!”
She crawled beneath a horse stall divider.
Rebecca grabbed a knife from her boot.
Before she reached me, the stable doors blew inward.
Marcus entered.
Daniel behind him.
Hannah too.
Rebecca ran toward the rear exit.
Daniel chased.
Hannah dropped beside Lily.
Marcus pressed gauze against my side.
“How bad?”
“Not terrible.”
“You’re bleeding through your shirt.”
“I’ve had worse meetings.”
Outside, a helicopter engine started.
Rebecca had planned an escape.
Daniel reached the aircraft.
But before he could climb aboard, a man stepped from behind a fuel truck.
Michael Crane.
Alive.
Bandaged.
He raised a pistol.
Daniel froze.
Michael pointed it toward Rebecca.
“Stop.”
Rebecca laughed.
“You don’t have the courage.”
Michael’s hands shook.
She walked toward him.
“I paid your debts.”
“You kidnapped me.”
“You betrayed me first.”
“You made my mother frame an innocent woman.”
“I gave your mother a purpose.”
Michael’s face changed.
He fired.
Not at Rebecca.
At the helicopter engine.
The round struck metal.
Smoke poured out.
Rebecca screamed.
Marcus’s team surrounded her.
Finally, she had nowhere to run.
She lifted both hands.
Then looked at Daniel.
“You think this is over?”
Daniel stared at her.
“It is for you.”
Rebecca smiled.
“No.”
She looked toward Lily.
“Ask the child what she saw in the basement.”
Hannah turned.
“What basement?”
Lily stopped crying.
“Daddy’s room.”
Daniel went still.
“What?”
Lily pointed toward the farmhouse.
“The room with Daddy’s pictures.”
We searched the basement.
Behind a false wall, Marcus found a surveillance center.
Photographs covered one wall.
Daniel.
Hannah.
Lily.
Me.
My father.
Audrey.
Evelyn.
Everyone.
But one photograph made Hannah stumble backward.
It showed Daniel standing outside her old apartment.
Six months after his supposed death.
Beside him was a woman.
Rebecca had written beneath it:
DANIEL + CLAIRE — CONTINGENCY B.
Hannah stared at her husband.
“Who is Claire?”
Daniel’s face went pale.
Rebecca laughed from behind the guards.
“There.”
She sounded delighted.
“That’s the part he didn’t tell you.”
Hannah looked at Daniel.
“Who is she?”
He whispered:
“My sister.”
Hannah blinked.
“You don’t have a sister.”
“I do.”
“Where is she?”
Daniel looked toward Rebecca.
Rebecca’s smile disappeared.
Daniel said:
“She’s the reason Rebecca could never find the final copy.”
Then an alarm sounded in the surveillance room.
One monitor turned red.
A live video opened.
A woman was tied to a chair.
Blonde.
Bruised.
Alive.
Daniel whispered:
“Claire.”
A countdown appeared beneath her.
00:29:59.
Rebecca looked genuinely surprised.
For the first time all night, she was not controlling the game.
Marcus stared at the timer.
“If Rebecca didn’t activate that…”
I understood.
“Nathan did.”
Daniel grabbed his coat.
“Where is she?”
Rebecca answered quietly.
“I don’t know.”
May you like
Twenty-nine minutes remained.
And somewhere, a woman nobody knew existed was about to die because a dead man had prepared one final revenge.
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