Chapter 13 - THE DEAD DON’T STAY QUIET
Evelyn stopped breathing.
“My mother died of cancer.”
Jonathan shook his head.
“No.”
The word was quiet.
It still destroyed the room.
Evelyn stepped back.
“My mother was sick for two years.”
“She was poisoned slowly.”
“No.”
“Evelyn—”
“No.”
She pointed at him.
“You don’t get to rewrite my entire life in one night.”
Jonathan looked down.
“I wish I were lying.”
Chloe whispered, “Why would my mother poison her?”
Jonathan answered.
“Because Evelyn’s mother found the original ledgers.”
Evelyn sat down.
She remembered her mother getting weaker.
Doctors confused.
Tests.
Hospitals.
Nausea.
Hair loss.
All of it explained as an aggressive autoimmune complication followed by organ failure.
Evelyn’s eyes burned.
“What poison?”
Jonathan looked at Detective Hart.
She answered.
“We’d need medical records and possibly an exhumation.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
An exhumation.
Her mother’s grave opened.
Because of a woman who had attended the funeral.
Then a memory came back.
Victoria Whitmore in black.
Holding Evelyn’s hand.
Telling her:
Your mother was a remarkable woman.
Evelyn stood abruptly.
“Find Victoria.”
Hart nodded.
“We are.”
“No.”
Evelyn walked toward the cabinets.
“Find her now.”
Jonathan watched her.
“She’ll come to you.”
Evelyn turned.
“Why?”
“Because you have the ledgers.”
He pointed at the red cabinet.
“She won’t leave without them.”
Chloe’s face changed.
“She knows we’re here.”
Jonathan nodded.
“She has cameras.”
Everyone looked around.
Hart shouted, “Check the building!”
Officers moved.
Marcus looked at Evelyn.
“We need to leave.”
A loud pop came from outside.
Then darkness.
The power died.
Chloe screamed.
Emergency lights flashed red.
Hart drew her weapon.
“Everybody down!”
Gunfire cracked outside.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Evelyn dropped behind a metal table.
Marcus covered Chloe.
Officers shouted.
Glass shattered.
A bullet tore through the wall.
Jonathan yelled, “Back room!”
Hart fired toward the window.
“Move!”
They ran.
Evelyn grabbed the red ledger box.
Marcus stared.
“Leave it!”
“No!”
“That thing isn’t worth your life!”
“It’s worth Michael’s!”
They reached the back hall.
Smoke filled the building.
“Fire!” someone shouted.
Victoria was burning the evidence.
Chloe coughed.
“My mother is insane.”
Evelyn shoved open a steel door.
Cold night air hit them.
They ran into the woods.
Behind them, flames climbed the roof.
Hart yelled into her radio.
“Suspect possibly armed!”
Suddenly headlights burst through the trees.
A maintenance van accelerated toward them.
“Move!”
Everyone dove aside.
The van slammed into a police cruiser.
Metal screamed.
The driver’s door opened.
Victoria Whitmore stepped out.
White hair.
Cream coat.
Gun in hand.
Chloe froze.
“Mom.”
Victoria looked at her daughter.
For one second, her face softened.
“Sweetheart.”
Chloe began crying.
“Did you kill Michael?”
Victoria said nothing.
“Did you kill Evelyn’s mother?”
“Chloe, come here.”
“No.”
“Come here.”
“No!”
Victoria’s face hardened.
“You don’t understand what I protected for you.”
“You murdered people!”
“I protected your future.”
Chloe laughed through tears.
“This is my future?”
Victoria lifted the gun slightly.
Evelyn stepped in front of Chloe.
Victoria smiled.
“There she is.”
Evelyn held the ledger box.
“You want this?”
Victoria’s eyes dropped to it.
“Yes.”
“Then put the gun down.”
Victoria laughed.
“You always did think you could negotiate your way through everything.”
“And you always confused fear with power.”
Victoria raised the gun.
Marcus shouted.
Hart aimed.
Everything happened at once.
Chloe screamed.
A shot exploded.
Evelyn felt a violent force slam into her.
May you like
She fell.
And for a moment, she couldn’t tell whose blood was spreading across her silver dress.
