Chapter 14 - The Warehouse
Police surrounded the warehouse without lights or sirens.
I stayed in the command vehicle because Detective Ortiz threatened to handcuff me if I moved.
For once, I listened.
A thermal drone found two people in the upstairs office.
One adult.
One child.
Camille was alive.
Hilda called my phone.
"You built a memorial warehouse for a woman you barely knew at the end."
My hands shook.
"What do you want?"
"The ledger."
"You already had access to it for years."
"Not Elena's copy."
"Why does that matter?"
"Because Marcus wrote notes in the margins."
Evidence tying her brother directly to the fraud.
Maybe evidence tying Hilda too.
"Let Camille walk out," I said.
"Bring me the ledger."
"No."
Silence.
Hilda sounded almost amused.
"You finally learned to say no."
"Not to my daughter."
"Your daughters were safer with me than with you."
"You starved them."
"I made the neglect visible."
I stopped breathing.
"What?"
"You never saw anything unless it became a crisis. I needed the court to see what I already knew."
"You nearly killed them to prove I was absent?"
"They were never going to die."
The certainty in her voice was monstrous.
"Just weaken enough to make the case."
Detective Ortiz stared at me from across the vehicle.
The call was recording.
I kept Hilda talking.
"Elena knew what you were doing."
"Elena knew too much about everything."
"Did you kill her?"
For the first time, Hilda went quiet.
Then Camille cried in the background.
My body moved before my mind.
Ortiz blocked the door.
"Trust us."
"I trusted people. Look where that got me."
"No. You delegated responsibility and called it trust. Different thing."
That landed.
Hilda came back on the line.
"Bring the ledger to the east loading bay in ten minutes."
Then she added softly:
"And Graham? Ask Mara why Elena never mailed Sophie's letter."
The call ended.
I turned toward Mara.
May you like
Her face had changed.
"What haven't you told me?" I asked.
