Chapter 14 - The North Gate
I sent Elena and Teresa into the interior room with Dr. Park, then called Bell and gave her the alarm details.
An engine roared somewhere beyond the hedges. Miles killed the driveway lights from a separate panel. The house went still.
"You're not carrying a gun?" he asked.
"No."
"That's new."
"I'm tired of solving one bad decision by making another."
A shadow crossed the terrace. I stepped back from the glass as a fist struck the door.
"Rafe!" a voice shouted.
It was Nico Calderone, my cousin, soaked to the skin and bleeding from a cut above his eyebrow.
I opened the side door only after Miles checked the camera.
"Victor sent men after me," Nico said. "He thinks I copied his contracts."
"Did you?"
"Every one I could find."
Nico had always been the soft-spoken accountant at our family dinners, the cousin everyone dismissed because he hated confrontation. I'd spent years mistaking that for weakness.
He put a small drive on the table.
"Your dad's old companies were used to bury the pier settlement money. After he died, Victor kept them alive. Shaw's clinic has been billing them for patients who never existed."
"Including my mother."
"Including your mother."
Nico wiped rain from his face.
"I should have told you sooner. I was scared of what Victor knew about me."
"What does he know?"
"That I altered records. Not just theirs. Yours."
I stared at him. "Then you're going to tell Bell, too."
"I already asked for a lawyer."
Outside, two vehicles appeared beyond the gate. Their lights flashed red and blue. Uniformed officers stepped out and called for the occupants of the house to remain inside.
I checked with Bell before anyone moved. They were real officers she'd requested.
In the interior room, my mother had begun humming Camille's three-note song. Elena held her hand and hummed along.
Then Bell called.
"We found the warehouse," she said. "We found the locked room."
My throat closed.
"And Lucy?"
May you like
Bell waited one unbearable second.
"The room was empty."
