Chapter 12 - THE SHOT
The shot was louder than anything I had ever heard.
For one second, nobody moved.
Then Hannah screamed.
Mom was on the floor.
I screamed too.
“Mom!”
I ran.
Vincent caught me.
“No.”
“Mom!”
She rolled over.
Blood covered her sleeve.
Her arm.
Not her chest.
She was alive.
Sterling had been tackled against the freezer.
Hannah kicked the gun away.
Vincent slammed Sterling’s wrist against the tile.
Once.
Twice.
The gun slid toward the drain.
Vega burst through the kitchen door.
“Hands!”
Sterling screamed.
“He’s killing me!”
Vincent looked at Vega.
She looked at Sterling.
Then at his bruised wrist.
“You look alive.”
She handcuffed him.
Mom sat against the wall.
I climbed into her lap.
“You got shot.”
“I noticed.”
“You said bad words.”
She laughed and cried at the same time.
“I noticed that too.”
The bullet had passed through the fleshy part of her upper arm.
Painful.
Bloody.
But not life-threatening.
Sterling was arrested.
This time for real.
No escape.
No tunnels.
No corrupt officer.
The police found the missing Carter box in his car.
Inside were copies of my mother’s identification.
Fake accounts.
The forged confession.
Photographs of me.
And something none of us expected.
A life insurance application.
On Mom.
For $250,000.
Beneficiary?
A shell company controlled by Sterling.
Mom stared at Vega.
“He planned to kill me.”
Vega didn’t answer immediately.
She didn’t have to.
That was answer enough.
Sterling’s charges grew.
Fraud.
Identity theft.
Wage theft.
Extortion.
Kidnapping.
Witness intimidation.
Attempted murder.
The list kept going.
But Vincent’s troubles were only beginning.
The reporter received Sterling’s files.
Federal agents began asking questions.
Vincent’s businesses were searched.
Marco was arrested on an old assault case.
Eli disappeared for two days because his lawyer told him to stop talking.
Mom watched everything unravel.
One night, Vincent sat alone in the library.
She found him there.
“You’re going to prison?”
He looked at her.
“Maybe.”
“For what you did?”
“Yes.”
Mom nodded slowly.
“Good.”
Vincent smiled.
“Good?”
“If you did it.”
He laughed softly.
“That may be the first honest thing anyone has said to me in years.”
Mom sat across from him.
“You helped us.”
“That doesn’t erase anything.”
“No.”
She looked toward me asleep on the couch.
“But it counts.”
Vincent nodded.
“That’s enough.”
The federal case took months.
Sterling’s trial came first.
He pleaded not guilty.
Of course he did.
At the preliminary hearing, his attorney called Mom a disgruntled employee.
Then the prosecutor brought out the purple-star work log.
The courtroom changed.
Sterling looked at me.
I was sitting beside Mom.
His eyes were cold.
Then he smiled.
Small.
Ugly.
Mom saw it.
So did Vincent.
And later, outside the courthouse, Vincent told Vega,
“He’s planning something.”
Vega frowned.
“He’s in custody.”
Vincent looked back at the courthouse.
“That never stopped him before.”
That night, the jail called.
David Sterling had been attacked in his cell.
May you like
And before losing consciousness, he told the guard one thing.
“Ask Claire what happens when the payroll file opens.”
