Chapter 8 - PIER 19Richard refused immediately.
“Your car?”
Richard’s voice was barely audible.
“Yes.”
“You were there?”
“I arrived after the crash.”
“That’s not what Price said.”
“I don’t care what Price said.”
Maria stepped backward.
“You told me no more secrets.”
“I wasn’t hiding this.”
“You forgot to mention being at my mother’s death?”
Richard’s eyes filled with pain.
“I have spent twelve years trying to understand what happened that night.”
Maria shook her head.
“Tell me.”
Richard took a breath.
“Twelve years ago, I received an anonymous call.”
“From who?”
“I didn’t know then.”
“What did they say?”
“That Elena Santos was alive.”
Maria stared.
“You didn’t know before that?”
“No.”
Richard continued.
“The caller told me to come to Blackwood Lodge alone.”
“And you went?”
“Yes.”
“I thought it might be a trap. But if there was even a chance…”
His voice weakened.
“I needed to know.”
Maria crossed her arms.
“What happened?”
“I drove to Vermont. Elena wasn’t at the lodge.”
“So you left?”
“I found a message.”
Richard opened a drawer and removed an old envelope.
He had kept it all these years.
Inside was a single sentence:
If you still love Elena, follow the lake road.
Maria felt chilled.
“Who wrote it?”
“I assumed Elena.”
“But it wasn’t her.”
“No.”
Richard drove the mountain road.
Ten minutes later he saw headlights and a damaged vehicle ahead.
Elena’s car had crashed through a guardrail.
“I stopped.”
His eyes stared at something far away.
“She was still alive.”
Maria’s anger vanished beneath grief.
“You saw her?”
Richard nodded.
“I climbed down.”
“What did she say?”
Richard’s voice broke.
“She looked at me like twenty years hadn’t passed.”
Maria covered her mouth.
“I kept asking who did it. She couldn’t answer.”
“Did she mention me?”
“Yes.”
The answer came instantly.
“She grabbed my coat and said, ‘Find Maria.’”
Maria began crying.
Richard continued.
“I didn’t know who Maria was.”
“She tried to tell you?”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“I heard another vehicle.”
Richard looked toward the dark window.
“Someone drove toward us. Elena panicked.”
“Price?”
“I couldn’t see.”
“What happened?”
“I climbed back toward the road to get help.”
His jaw tightened.
“The driver hit me.”
Maria stared.
“What?”
“I woke in the hospital two days later.”
Richard rolled up his sleeve.
A long scar crossed his forearm.
“They told me I had been found unconscious near the road. Elena was dead.”
Maria struggled to understand.
“Why wasn’t this in the police report?”
“Price removed me from it.”
“And you let him?”
“I tried to challenge it.”
“Then why didn’t you tell the press?”
“Because I had no proof. Price claimed I had suffered a head injury and was confused.”
Maria sat slowly.
“Who called you?”
Richard looked at her.
“I found out last year.”
“Who?”
“Teresa.”
Maria froze.
Richard explained that Elena had asked Teresa to contact him if she failed to return from the vault.
But Teresa had never told Richard directly.
She used a pay phone and disguised her identity out of fear.
The message at Blackwood Lodge, however, had not been hers.
“So Victor knew you were coming,” Maria whispered.
Richard nodded.
“He wanted me at the scene.”
“Why?”
“To implicate me if necessary.”
Maria suddenly remembered Price’s sentence.
Ask Richard who was driving the second car.
“What second car?”
Richard explained that witnesses later reported two vehicles near the crash.
Elena’s car.
A black sedan.
And Richard’s SUV.
“Price wants me to think you caused it.”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
Richard looked at her.
“No.”
Maria searched his face.
For nearly three years, she had studied Richard Hale’s silences.
Now she understood them better.
He had been carrying ghosts.
But trust was not easy.
Not yet.
Marcus arranged a secret meeting with Price.
Federal agents monitored the location.
Price arrived nervous.
He looked much older than Maria remembered.
When he saw her, shame crossed his face.
“You look like Elena.”
Maria’s voice was cold.
“Don’t.”
Price nodded.
Fair.
Richard remained beside her.
Price glanced at him.
“You should have stopped this years ago.”
Richard’s fists tightened.
Maria interrupted.
“Who killed my mother?”
Price looked around.
“Victor ordered the intimidation.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Price swallowed.
“The plan was to scare Elena off the road. Force her to hand over the evidence.”
“Who drove?”
“Victor’s security chief back then.”
“Name.”
“Martin Kessler.”
Marcus wrote it down.
Maria asked, “And Richard?”
Price looked at him.
“Richard arrived unexpectedly.”
“Because Teresa called him.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Kessler panicked.”
Price rubbed his hands together.
“He thought Richard had seen him.”
“Did Kessler hit Richard?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t he kill him?”
“Because Victor arrived.”
Richard stood.
“You’re lying.”
Price flinched.
“Victor was there?”
“Yes.”
Richard stared.
“I never saw him.”
“You were unconscious.”
Maria’s stomach turned.
“What did Victor do?”
Price hesitated.
“Victor told Kessler to leave.”
“And my mother?”
Price looked at Maria.
“She was alive.”
Maria stopped breathing.
Richard gripped the chair.
“You said the crash killed her.”
Price’s eyes filled with fear.
“It didn’t.”
Silence.
Maria whispered, “Then what did?”
Price looked away.
“I arrived six minutes later.”
“Answer me.”
“Elena was still breathing.”
Richard’s face became terrible.
“What happened?”
Price swallowed.
“Victor stood beside her.”
Maria felt the room tilting.
“He said she knew too much.”
“No,” Richard whispered.
Price continued.
“He ordered me to delay the ambulance.”
Maria stared at him.
“How long?”
Price closed his eyes.
“Twenty-seven minutes.”
Richard lunged across the table.
Marcus caught him.
“You let her die!”
Price stumbled backward.
“I was afraid!”
“So was she!”
Maria had never heard Richard shout like that.
Federal agents entered.
Price raised his hands.
“I can testify!”
Richard struggled against Marcus.
“You watched her die!”
Maria stood frozen.
Twenty-seven minutes.
Her mother might have lived.
Price was taken into custody.
The room emptied.
Richard sank into a chair.
Maria watched him cry silently for the woman they had both lost.
For the first time, she placed a hand on his shoulder.
He looked up.
Neither of them needed words.
Then Marcus’s phone rang.
He listened.
His expression changed.
“Victor’s gone.”
Richard stood.
“What?”
“His jet left Boston forty minutes ago.”
“Where?”
“We don’t know.”
Maria’s phone buzzed.
A message.
A photograph.
Teresa, sitting in a chair with her hands tied.
Beneath it:
Bring the original trust documents to Pier 19 by midnight or she dies. Come alone, Maria.
May you like
Maria looked at Richard.
Victor had stopped pretending.
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