Chapter 19 - What Happened to Samuel Monroe
Margaret denied killing Samuel.
At first.
Then Brooks played Pike’s call.
Margaret closed her eyes.
“He wasn’t supposed to die.”
Ava felt the room tilt even though she was sitting still.
“What did you do?”
Margaret’s voice shook.
“Pike wanted Samuel frightened. He wanted the ledger.”
“What did you do?”
“I gave Samuel something to make him sleep.”
Ethan looked sick.
“The same way you drugged Ava?”
Margaret began to cry.
“A lower dose.”
Ava’s hands clenched.
“Samuel had a heart condition,” Brooks said.
“I didn’t know.”
Ava’s voice was almost a whisper.
“You knew enough to put it in his drink.”
Margaret covered her face.
Pike had entered Samuel’s house after he became unconscious.
They argued when Samuel woke.
Samuel reached for the phone.
Pike shoved him.
Samuel collapsed.
Margaret panicked.
Pike stopped her from calling an ambulance for eleven minutes while he searched the office.
Those eleven minutes likely cost Samuel his life.
Ava could barely speak.
“You stood there.”
Margaret sobbed.
“I was afraid.”
Ava stared at her.
“That word is not big enough.”
The confession was recorded.
It gave prosecutors what they needed for a homicide investigation.
But Pike was still free.
Brooks refused to use Margaret as bait.
Margaret volunteered anyway.
“For Ethan,” she said.
Ethan answered through the glass.
“Don’t do it for me.”
Margaret looked at him.
“Then for Ava.”
Ava’s expression did not change.
“You don’t get to make this noble.”
Still, Margaret knew Pike’s habits.
She knew how he thought.
That mattered.
Federal agents surrounded the abandoned chapel.
Margaret entered wearing a wire.
Ava watched from a mobile command unit with Ethan.
Pike appeared from behind the altar.
Older now.
Tired.
But smiling.
“You always come back,” he told Margaret.
“So do you.”
“Where’s the ledger?”
“Safe.”
Pike stepped closer.
“You betrayed me.”
Margaret laughed bitterly.
“I mistook obedience for partnership.”
For the first time, Pike looked angry.
“You were useful.”
Those words destroyed whatever remained of her loyalty.
Margaret said, “Samuel was right about you.”
Pike reached inside his coat.
Agents moved.
He pulled out a small pistol.
Margaret froze.
Then a voice came over the chapel speakers.
Ava’s voice.
“Conrad.”
Pike looked up.
Ava had insisted on speaking.
“You wanted the ledger because it proves what you are.”
He smiled.
“You came.”
“I came to watch you lose.”
Pike aimed toward the sound.
Agents fired.
The shot struck the stone wall.
Pike fell, wounded in the shoulder, alive.
Officers swarmed him.
As they pulled the weapon away, he laughed once and looked at Margaret.
“You think this saves you?”
Margaret stared at him.
“No.”
May you like
Then she looked directly toward the hidden camera.
“For the first time, I know it shouldn’t.”
