Chapter 17 - The Last Deal
Police surrounded my parents’ house before midnight.
Ryan was inside with my mother.
That made no sense because Mom had supposedly been cooperating from her lawyer’s office all evening.
Then Daniel received the explanation.
She had left through a side exit two hours earlier.
Even after everything, Mom still believed she could negotiate one more deal.
Officers called the house.
No answer.
A neighbor reported seeing Ryan’s car behind the garage.
I waited in a police command vehicle three blocks away.
“Why would Mom go back to him?” I asked.
Grandma’s answer was quiet. “Because she still thinks she can control him.”
At 12:18 a.m., a downstairs light flickered on.
At 12:21, Mom called me.
“Emily.”
Her whisper was barely audible.
“Are you safe?”
“He has a gun.”
My blood froze.
“Where are you?”
“Dad’s office.”
“Can you get out?”
“No.”
A man shouted in the background.
Mom gasped.
Then Ryan took the phone.
“Hi, Em.”
I had never heard him say it like that.
“What do you want?”
“Tell the police to back off.”
“I can’t.”
“You can tell them the fraud was a misunderstanding.”
“No.”
He laughed softly. “Still letting Evelyn tell you what to do.”
“No, Ryan. I’m finally telling myself what to do.”
Then his voice sharpened. “You ruined my life.”
“You stole mine.”
“I gave you a life.”
“You gave me a cage and charged rent with my own money.”
Grandma squeezed my shoulder.
Ryan breathed hard into the phone.
“Get me safe passage and I let Linda walk out.”
The negotiator beside me shook his head.
“I can’t promise that.”
“Then you don’t care what happens to your mother.”
Mom had betrayed me in ways I still could not fully name.
But I did not want her dead.
“I care,” I said. “That’s the difference between us.”
A crash sounded over the phone.
Mom screamed.
Then the line disconnected.
Officers moved.
For ninety seconds I heard nothing but radio traffic and my own heartbeat.
Then a dispatcher said, “One female coming out the rear.”
Mom ran into the yard barefoot.
Ryan fired once through the back door.
The shot missed her.
Police rushed the house.
And when they reached Dad’s office, Ryan was gone.
A hidden panel behind the bookcase stood open.
May you like
It led to the basement.
And the basement door to the alley was swinging in the wind.
