Chapter 7 - The Price of Loyalty
My mother looked fragile beneath the harsh warehouse lights.
Her dialysis port was exposed.
A masked man stood beside her holding a syringe.
Richard Sterling smiled into the camera.
“Bring me Evelyn’s notebook.”
Arthur looked at me.
I could see the answer in his eyes before he spoke.
“No.”
My chest tightened.
“That’s my mother.”
“If we give him the notebook, he destroys the only evidence we have.”
“She could die.”
“And more people will die if he gets what he wants.”
I slapped him.
The sound cracked through the study.
Arthur did not move.
Bella stood in the doorway.
She had seen everything.
I turned away, ashamed and furious.
Arthur spoke quietly.
“You should hate me.”
“I do.”
“But I’m still going to save her.”
He gave Richard a meeting location and agreed to bring the notebook.
Then he handed me the real notebook.
“The one I take will be a copy.”
“You think they won’t check?”
“They will.”
Arthur opened Evelyn’s book to the middle.
Several pages were missing.
“She removed the most important evidence before hiding it.”
“Where?”
He looked toward Bella.
Evelyn had left the answer with her daughter.
We searched Bella’s room.
Nothing.
Then Bella brought us an old stuffed rabbit.
A seam along its back had been stitched by hand.
Inside were six tiny strips of microfilm.
Arthur stared at them.
“These contain the original transfer records.”
That meant the notebook was no longer essential.
But Richard could not know that.
At midnight, Arthur went to the exchange with a fake copy.
Federal agents secretly surrounded the warehouse.
I watched from a surveillance van.
Richard appeared.
So did Marcus.
But my mother was not with them.
Arthur handed over the notebook.
Richard smiled.
Then he pressed a button.
May you like
The warehouse exploded.
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