Chapter 13 - MY MOTHER’S CHOICE
“Mom?”
Diane kept the gun raised.
“Give me the ledger.”
“You left Noah beside a highway.”
“I was scared.”
“You smiled.”
Her face crumpled.
“I was trying to survive your father.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“You don’t get to use him for this.”
Walter laughed.
“There she is.”
Mom snapped toward him.
“Shut up.”
“You always were weak.”
Diane’s hand shook.
He saw it too.
“Put the gun down.”
“No.”
“Diane.”
“I gave you thirty-seven years.”
“And I gave you everything.”
“You gave me bruises no one saw.”
My anger paused.
Not disappeared.
Paused.
Some truths can exist beside other truths.
Walter may have abused my mother.
And my mother had still helped abandon my son.
Pain explained things.
It did not erase choices.
Mom looked at me.
“I knew about the money.”
Avery swore quietly.
Diane continued.
“I knew about the shell companies. I knew Robert wanted out.”
“Did you know Dad used my identity?”
She started crying.
“Yes.”
The word nearly broke me.
“How long?”
“Years.”
“Years?”
“I thought if I helped him, he would leave you alone.”
“You forged my signature.”
“Yes.”
“You opened accounts in my name.”
“Yes.”
“You stole from the government using my military credentials.”
Walter interrupted.
“We built something.”
“You built a prison.”
Mom shouted it.
Silence.
Then she said, “When Claire found the files, Walter said we only needed to scare her.”
I stared at her.
“You believed leaving a child in twenty-nine-degree weather was scaring me?”
Diane looked down.
“No.”
That answer hurt more because it was true.
Nolan shifted.
Big mistake.
Avery fired.
Nolan fired back.
The cabin exploded into motion.
I pulled Noah behind the wood stove.
Walter tackled Diane.
The ledger fell.
Avery lunged for it.
Nolan crashed into a table.
I shoved Noah toward the open back window.
“Climb!”
“Mom!”
“GO!”
He climbed through.
Outside, police shouted.
Walter heard them.
His face went wild.
“You brought them!”
“Of course I brought them.”
He grabbed the ledger and ran toward the front door.
Avery blocked him.
Walter punched him.
Nolan reached for his rifle.
Diane kicked it away.
I grabbed Noah’s hand outside the window.
Then Dad burst through the side door.
He sprinted toward a pickup.
“Walter!” Mom screamed.
He didn’t stop.
Avery followed.
So did Nolan.
Three desperate men running toward two vehicles.
Police emerged from the dark.
“DROP YOUR WEAPONS!”
Walter got inside the pickup.
Avery dove into an SUV.
Nolan jumped into the passenger seat beside him.
Engines roared.
The vehicles tore onto the mining road.
Ortiz reached me.
“Noah?”
“Safe.”
“Diane?”
Mom climbed from the window.
She raised her hands.
“I surrender.”
Ortiz cuffed her.
Diane didn’t resist.
Then we heard an enormous crash from beyond the hill.
Metal.
Glass.
A second impact.
And then silence.
Mom closed her eyes.
May you like
I looked toward the road.
One of those vehicles had just gone over the edge.
