Chapter 10 - The Other Sister
The bullet struck Vivian in the side.
She fell beside the driveway.
Emma pushed against the panic-room door.
“We have to help her.”
Sarah blocked her.
“Four armed suspects are downstairs.”
“She’ll bleed to death.”
Rebecca opened a locked cabinet inside the room and removed a handgun.
Emma stared at her.
“You keep a weapon in the wall?”
“I’ve sentenced dangerous people for thirty years.”
Gunfire erupted downstairs.
Not from Lang.
Someone outside was firing toward the house.
Sarah checked the security screen built into the panic room.
TBI vehicles had arrived.
Lang’s men scattered.
Helena dragged Vivian behind the black sedan.
“Police!” a voice shouted. “Drop your weapons!”
Lang fired toward the officers.
The driveway became chaos.
Sarah opened the panic-room door when the shooting moved away from the house.
They descended the stairs.
A wounded man lay in the foyer. Another had surrendered near the porch.
Lang ran through the backyard.
Sarah pursued him with two officers.
Emma and Rebecca reached Vivian.
Blood soaked the side of her ivory dress.
Helena was gone.
Vivian looked up at Rebecca.
“You always did have dramatic timing.”
Rebecca knelt and pressed both hands over the wound.
“Save your breath.”
Vivian’s gaze moved to Emma.
“I’m sorry about the salad.”
Emma almost laughed from shock.
“You think that is what needs apologizing for?”
“It’s the most recent item.”
Paramedics rushed forward.
As they lifted Vivian onto a stretcher, she grabbed Emma’s wrist.
“Helena has the laptop.”
“We know.”
“No. You don’t understand. She also has the original Bellweather deed.”
“Why does it matter now?”
“The trust gives you control only if the original deed proves Thomas never sold the property.”
“Where was it?”
“In my bank vault. Helena accessed it yesterday.”
“Why keep it all these years?”
Vivian’s eyes fluttered.
“Insurance.”
Against Charles.
Against Daniel.
Against everyone.
The ambulance carried her away under police escort.
Rebecca stood beside Emma in the driveway.
Neither woman knew how to speak to the other.
Finally Rebecca said, “You should be examined at the hospital.”
“I’ve been examined.”
“You were in an explosion.”
“And you were abducted.”
A faint, sad smile touched Rebecca’s mouth.
“You sound like Thomas.”
Emma looked at her.
For years, she had wondered whether she resembled her missing mother.
Now the answer stood before her.
Not only in the eyes or shape of the face, but in the stubborn refusal to collapse.
Sarah returned.
“Lang escaped into the woods. We found his abandoned phone.”
“Anything useful?” Rebecca asked.
“A message from Helena. She’s taking the money and leaving through a private airfield.”
“Which one?”
“The message only says ‘where Rebecca became Vale.’”
Rebecca’s face changed.
“I know the place.”
Twenty-five years earlier, Vivian had hidden Rebecca in an apartment near a small regional airport. Rebecca later obtained new documents through a federal witness arrangement and took the name Vale.
The airfield was now privately owned.
By Arden Global Holdings.
They drove there with a convoy.
Emma sat beside Rebecca in the rear of an armored SUV.
The silence between them lasted several miles.
“Did you attend my wedding?” Emma finally asked.
Rebecca looked out the window.
“I watched from outside the church.”
“Why?”
“I needed to see you.”
“But not speak to me.”
“If I had entered, Charles would have known.”
“He already knew you were alive.”
“I did not know that.”
Emma studied her mother’s profile.
“You built an entire career judging other people’s choices.”
“Yes.”
“Was it easier than facing your own?”
Rebecca accepted the blow.
“Much easier.”
They arrived at the airfield shortly before noon.
A private jet idled near the runway.
Helena stood beside it holding the secure laptop and a leather portfolio.
Peter Lang waited near the stairs.
Two armed guards positioned themselves behind a fuel truck.
Police surrounded the hangar.
Helena lifted a phone.
“If anyone approaches, the evidence uploads to every major news organization with Emma Mercer identified as the architect of the fraud.”
Emma stepped from the armored SUV before anyone could stop her.
Helena smiled.
“Thomas’s little girl.”
“You knew my father?”
“I knew his weakness.”
“My mother?”
“Exactly.”
Rebecca joined Emma.
Helena’s smile vanished.
“You should have stayed dead.”
Vivian’s sister looked like a colder version of her, with silver-blonde hair and perfect posture. But where Vivian’s cruelty was rooted in control, Helena seemed to enjoy destruction.
“What do you want?” Rebecca asked.
“Safe passage.”
“You won’t get it.”
“Then Emma becomes America’s favorite corrupt charity lawyer.”
Emma raised her voice.
“The documents will show my signatures.”
“Yes.”
“But they’ll also show the account routes, IP addresses, and authorizations from Mercer executives.”
Helena’s expression shifted.
“You assume I kept those.”
“The county received Daniel’s coerced transfer.”
“A transfer that can be voided.”
“Not before investigators trace Arden.”
Helena looked toward the jet.
She was losing time.
Emma stepped closer.
“You spent years hiding money for people who treated you like a secret. Now you’re risking your freedom to save them.”
“I’m saving myself.”
“No. You’re carrying their evidence.”
Helena glanced at the leather portfolio.
That was all Sarah needed.
A sniper’s shot struck the pavement beside Lang.
He dropped his weapon.
Officers advanced.
Helena grabbed Emma and pressed a small pistol beneath her chin.
Rebecca raised her own weapon.
“Release her.”
Helena laughed.
“You couldn’t save her the first time.”
Rebecca’s hand trembled.
Emma felt Helena’s breath near her ear.
“Your mother chose a new name over you.”
Rebecca’s eyes filled with anguish.
Emma understood what Helena wanted.
A hesitation.
A mistake.
A family wound deep enough to become a weapon.
Emma drove her heel backward into Helena’s knee.
The gun discharged.
Rebecca fired.
Helena fell.
The bullet struck her shoulder, not her chest.
Police rushed forward.
Emma stepped away, touching her neck.
The secure laptop lay on the pavement.
The leather portfolio had opened.
Inside was the original Bellweather deed.
May you like
And beneath it was a sealed envelope addressed in Thomas Hale’s handwriting.
For Emma, when the truth is finally safe.
