Chapter 10 - The House Where Everything BeganThe Baltimore brownstone looked almost exactly as it had when Anna and I moved in forty years earlier.
I had buried Anna there sixteen years earlier beneath a stone angel she had chosen herself.
At the time I thought the statue was sentimental.
Now I understood it was camouflage.
Police surrounded the cemetery from three entrances.
Maya had finally persuaded the inspector general to take operational control away from compromised local officials.
Daniel refused to let Ruby enter.
For once, she agreed.
She stayed inside an armored vehicle with Helen.
Claire came with me.
Neither of us spoke as we walked toward Anna’s grave.
The angel was visible through the rain.
One wing extended above the headstone.
The base had been opened.
Stone pieces lay in the mud.
Too late.
Claire ran.
“Mom.”
Inside the base was a narrow metal compartment.
Empty.
Except for a photograph.
Anna.
Claire as a teenager.
Me standing behind them.
Across the back, Evelyn had written:
YOU WERE ALWAYS TOO LATE.
Claire crushed it.
“I hate her.”
“You’re allowed.”
“She took fifteen years.”
“Yes.”
“She made me think you hated me.”
“Yes.”
“She made you think I was unstable.”
“Yes.”
Claire turned.
“Stop agreeing.”
“I’ve learned arguing with you goes badly.”
For the first time, she gave me a real smile.
Then sirens screamed near the cemetery gate.
Daniel’s voice came through my earpiece.
“Vehicle moving west. Black Mercedes.”
Police units pursued.
We ran back.
The chase crossed three counties.
I watched through Daniel’s tablet as highway cameras tracked the Mercedes.
Evelyn was heading toward the airport.
Of course.
Private aviation terminal.
A Gulfstream registered to a Luxembourg corporation had filed a flight plan for Montreal.
From there, she could disappear.
Martin’s vehicle separated.
Two targets.
Police followed Martin.
We followed Evelyn.
At the private terminal, her plane had begun taxiing.
Federal agents blocked the runway.
The jet stopped.
For five minutes, no one came out.
Then the cabin door opened.
A pilot descended.
Two crew members.
No Evelyn.
Daniel swore.
“She switched.”
Where?
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Evelyn laughed.
“You always watch the expensive door.”
I looked around.
Across the airfield, a fuel truck rolled toward a service gate.
“Fuel truck!”
Daniel shouted into his radio.
Vehicles moved.
The truck accelerated.
It smashed through a chain barrier and disappeared onto an access road.
We followed.
The chase lasted eleven minutes.
The truck finally crashed into an empty drainage ditch.
Driver’s door opened.
Martin stumbled out.
Not Evelyn.
Police surrounded him.
“Where is she?” I demanded after agents restrained him.
Martin laughed.
“You still don’t understand her.”
“Where?”
“She doesn’t want to escape.”
Claire froze.
“What does she want?”
Martin looked at her.
“To erase everything.”
“The master key?”
He smiled.
“It doesn’t open bank accounts.”
Maya leaned closer.
“What does it open?”
Martin coughed.
Blood stained his shirt from the earlier gunshot wound.
“A server.”
“What server?”
“The archive isn’t paper.”
Anna had been more careful than any of us realized.
Martin continued.
“She built a dead-man system. Every record. Every payment. Every name. If activated, it sends copies to investigators and newspapers automatically.”
My pulse quickened.
“Then Evelyn wants to destroy it.”
Martin shook his head.
“No.”
He laughed again.
“She wants to trigger it.”
Maya frowned.
“Why would she expose herself?”
“Because she changed the files.”
Cold moved through me.
“Changed them how?”
“Thomas.”
Martin smiled.
“She made you the architect.”
If Evelyn activated manipulated evidence, I would appear responsible for bribery, fraud and potentially Anna’s death.
Claire said, “Where’s the server?”
Martin closed his eyes.
“Ask Anna.”
I grabbed his shirt.
“Martin.”
Agents pulled me back.
His voice became faint.
“Your first home.”
Then he lost consciousness.
My first home.
Not the estate.
Before Whitaker Holdings became enormous.
Before the mansion.
Anna and I lived in a narrow brownstone in Baltimore.
I had kept it.
Never sold it.
No one knew why.
Not even me.
Perhaps some part of me had always remembered happiness there.
We drove south.
Claire sat beside me.
“She took me there once.”
“Anna?”
“Yes. Right before she died.”
I stared.
“She showed me a hidden room.”
Everything connected.
“Why didn’t you tell Samuel?”
“I did.”
“Then why didn’t he retrieve it?”
“Because Mom designed it so only family could unlock it.”
“With the master key.”
Claire nodded.
“What does it look like?”
“I don’t know.”
We both did.
The necklace.
My eyes widened.
Ruby’s locket.
The second compartment.
The paper message had fallen out.
But maybe there was something else.
I called Helen.
“Check the locket.”
Ruby answered instead.
“I have it.”
“Look inside the second compartment.”
“I did.”
“Anything else?”
Silence.
Then a tiny click.
Ruby gasped.
“There’s a little gold piece.”
A key.
Evelyn did not have the master key.
She had only opened the monument.
“Ruby, listen to me.”
“Yes?”
“Do not give that to anyone.”
“Okay.”
“Anyone.”
“I know what anyone means.”
Claire laughed despite everything.
Then Helen screamed through the phone.
The line dropped.
I stared at the screen.
“Ruby?”
No answer.
I called again.
Nothing.
Daniel contacted the protection vehicle.
Static.
Then one of his men came through.
“Ambush. Two vehicles.”
My blood froze.
“Ruby?”
“She’s gone.”
Claire made a sound I will never forget.
Daniel accelerated.
The Baltimore house no longer mattered.
Then my phone received a video.
Evelyn stood inside the kitchen of my first home.
Ruby sat behind her.
Alive.
Scared.
The locket in Evelyn’s hand.
“I told you, Thomas.”
Evelyn smiled into the camera.
“You always arrive too late.”
May you like
She lifted the gold key.
“Come home.”
