Chapter 11 - THE WOMAN ACROSS THE STREET
Maria called the police.
Within twenty minutes, two patrol cars sat in front of my house.
The person across the street was gone.
But a neighbor’s security camera captured a dark SUV.
Georgia plates.
Partial number.
Maria told Caleb and me not to stay alone.
Joyce volunteered before anybody asked.
“I sleep with a baseball bat.”
“You don’t play baseball,” I said.
“That’s why it’s available.”
That night, none of us slept much.
Around midnight, Caleb’s phone lit up.
Lindsay.
Maria had told him not to answer.
He didn’t.
A voicemail arrived.
He played it on speaker.
“Caleb, please call me. You don’t understand what’s happening. My mother is out of control.”
Caleb closed his eyes.
Lindsay continued.
“I know you hate me. You should. But I didn’t know everything.”
Caleb laughed bitterly.
Then the message changed.
“I have documents she doesn’t know I kept. Caroline gave them to me before she died.”
Maria leaned forward.
“I tried to get away from Mom years ago. I did. But she said if I left, she’d make sure I went down for everything too.”
Caleb whispered, “Convenient.”
Then Lindsay said something that made him stop.
“I was supposed to use you. At first.”
He covered his mouth.
“I knew who you were before we met. Mom sent me to that fundraiser because she knew Harold Bennett’s son would be there.”
I shut my eyes.
There it was.
Confirmed.
“But Caleb…”
Her voice broke.
“I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you.”
He stood and walked away.
The voicemail kept playing.
“I know that doesn’t fix anything. I know I stole from you. I know I lied. I know what I did.”
Then came the sentence that changed everything again.
“But the eighty-seven thousand wasn’t for me. Mom owes dangerous people, and she told them Roberta’s money was coming.”
Maria paused the message.
“What dangerous people?”
Nobody knew.
She resumed it.
“I can prove where the money went. I can prove Mom forged your signatures. I can prove she reopened Whitmore Family Holdings using stolen records.”
Then Lindsay whispered,
“But I won’t send anything electronically. She watches my accounts.”
A pause.
“If you want the truth, come to the old Ridgeway storage facility on Chapman Highway tomorrow at eleven.”
The message ended.
Caleb immediately said, “I’m going.”
Maria shook her head.
“No.”
“She says she has proof.”
“And somebody photographed your mother’s house.”
“I’m still going.”
“Not alone.”
He looked at me.
“Mom, you’re not coming.”
I almost laughed.
“You’re thirty-eight years old and only now deciding to protect me?”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
Maria stood.
“Nobody is walking into an abandoned facility without police knowing.”
Joyce raised one hand.
“Can I still bring the bat?”
Nobody answered.
At 10:52 the next morning, we pulled into the parking lot of the old Ridgeway storage building.
Lindsay’s car was already there.
Driver’s door open.
Engine running.
May you like
Nobody inside.
Then Caleb saw blood on the pavement.
