Chapter 12 - The Voice on the Line
Rosalind sank into a kitchen chair. “Mom?”
“Yes, honey.” The voice was older and rougher than she remembered, but it held the same soft lift on the second syllable. “I know you're angry. You should be.”
Rosalind began to cry. “I buried you.”
“I know.”
“You let us think—”
“I know.”
Tobias stood perfectly still. Evelyn asked to speak to him, and for the first time since the river, he looked frightened.
“You kept your promise,” she told him.
“What promise?” Rosalind demanded.
Silence stretched across the line.
Evelyn sighed. “When Tobias recovered, he found me. I begged him not to tell you until we could prove who owned the port. I thought distance would keep you safe.”
Rosalind looked at her brother. “You knew she was alive?”
“Not where she was,” he said. “Not for years.”
Evelyn interrupted. “They have the ledger at North Point. It's evidence of everything—shipments, payoffs, forged wills. But the property is wired with cameras, and Vance knows somebody's coming.”
“Where are you?”
“Somewhere I can help. Meet Denise Carter in Port Hale. She'll know what to do.”
“Mom, please don't hang up.”
“I love you, Rosebud.”
The line went dead.
Rosalind stood and walked outside into the cold. Tobias followed, but she raised a hand.
“Fifteen years in a wheelchair. My mother alive. My husband trying to kill me. Tell me what else you've decided I don't deserve to know.”
“Nothing.”
She laughed once, bitterly. “That's not comforting anymore.”
He took the blow without defending himself. “You're right.”
The headlights of a passing truck washed over the farmhouse. Mae opened the door and called them back inside.
May you like
Denise Carter was on the television. The headline beneath her photograph said she had been arrested for conspiracy to defraud the Laurel River Trust.
In the police footage, standing behind Denise, was Garrett.
