Chapter 14 - THE HAND BETWEEN THEM
Isabelle screamed as her body slid across the wet rooftop.
Lena held one of her wrists.
Evelyn grabbed the other.
Thomas hung over the edge.
His grip remained locked around the chain attached to Isabelle’s cuff.
“Pull me up!”
Neither sister answered.
Thomas looked down at the street far below.
Fear replaced his arrogance.
“Evelyn, listen to me.”
“I can return the money.”
Evelyn tightened her grip on Isabelle.
“The money was never the worst thing you stole.”
Thomas’s voice shook.
“I know where your mother’s original letters are.”
Isabelle froze.
Thomas noticed.
“They prove she loved you.”
“They prove she planned to return.”
“Pull me up, and I will give them to you.”
Isabelle looked at Evelyn.
For one painful second, Evelyn saw the sixteen-year-old girl who had disappeared.
Not the woman who had arranged sabotage.
Not the woman who had nearly destroyed the hotel.
Just her frightened younger sister.
“We can save him,” Isabelle whispered.
Evelyn understood why.
Isabelle did not want Thomas to die before revealing where the letters were.
Lena’s hands slipped on the wet fabric.
“I cannot hold much longer.”
Evelyn called toward the guards arriving from the stairwell.
“Rope!”
One officer threw a rescue line.
Evelyn looped it around Isabelle’s waist.
Together, they pulled her farther from the edge.
Thomas was dragged upward with her.
His free hand reached the roof.
Then his expression changed.
He pulled a small knife from his sleeve.
He stabbed toward Isabelle’s hand.
Evelyn kicked his wrist.
The knife fell.
Thomas snarled.
“You should have let me die.”
Evelyn looked down at him.
“No.”
“You are going to live long enough to lose everything.”
The officers pulled Thomas onto the roof.
They forced him onto his stomach.
They handcuffed him.
He shouted that the government was corrupt.
He threatened judges.
He named senators.
No one listened.
Paramedics rushed to Isabelle.
The bullet had passed through her shoulder.
She was weak but conscious.
Evelyn knelt beside her.
“Where is the drive?”
Isabelle opened her hand.
It was empty.
Evelyn looked around.
The flash drive had disappeared during the struggle.
Thomas began laughing.
“You lost it.”
Isabelle’s lips curved slightly.
“No.”
Lena reached beneath the torn sleeve of her uniform.
She removed the flash drive.
Isabelle had slipped it to her when she caught Lena’s wrist.
Thomas stopped laughing.
Federal agents arrived minutes later.
Agent Parker had survived the transport attack and had managed to call for backup.
The flash drive contained everything.
Foreign accounts.
Bribed officials.
Secret contracts.
Recordings of Thomas ordering the murder of Evelyn’s mother.
And the location of a private storage vault.
Inside that vault, investigators found the letters.
There were thirty-two of them.
Every one was addressed to Isabelle.
None had ever been delivered.
In the ambulance, Evelyn handed the first letter to her sister.
Isabelle read the opening line.
My sweet Isabelle, I did not leave because I stopped loving you.
Tears rolled silently down her face.
May you like
Then she reached for Evelyn’s hand.
But before she could speak, the heart monitor beside her began to scream.
