Chapter 12 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Aunt Ruth was alive.
She sat in the back of an ambulance wrapped in blankets, furious enough to frighten three deputies at once.
“I am eighty-one years old,” she snapped. “I survived a husband who snored like farm equipment and two hip surgeries. Did that little lawyer truly think a cup of drugged tea would finish me?”
Leo liked her immediately.
Henry hugged his sister-in-law for a long time.
“You stubborn old goat,” Ruth told him.
“You were declared dead yesterday.”
“So were you.”
Henry laughed.
For the first time since the portrait broke, Leo felt something close to safety.
Then Ruth reached inside her coat.
“The package is gone.”
Henry’s smile vanished.
“What happened?”
“Martin came to my house wearing that charming funeral face of his. Said he had come to tell me you were presumed dead. Made tea. I drank half a cup, realized it tasted wrong, and dumped the rest into a plant when he turned away.”
Claire asked, “How did you end up here?”
“He searched the house. Found the package. I confronted him. Next thing I remember, I woke up tied to a chair in that storage unit.”
Cross looked toward the open unit.
“Why leave you alive?”
Ruth smiled sharply. “Because he needed my password.”
“What password?” Henry asked.
“The one for the package.”
Leo blinked.
Ruth tapped her temple. “Your grandfather called me before mailing it. Said if anyone came asking, I should put the drive somewhere safer than my house.”
Henry stared at her.
“Where?”
“I uploaded everything to my lawyer’s secure server before Martin arrived.”
Richard, sitting cuffed in a patrol car nearby, let out a bitter laugh.
Martin had risked everything for an empty package.
Cross asked for the lawyer’s name.
Ruth gave it to him.
Five minutes later, the secure files were downloaded to a police laptop.
Video from Henry’s body camera showed Richard driving Henry’s car to the bridge.
Audio captured Martin ordering two hired men to move Henry to an abandoned hunting cabin.
Bank records tied the stolen money to Richard.
Medical records linked Martin and Dr. Vale to the altered medication.
It was enough to destroy them.
Almost.
Cross frowned at the final folder.
“What is Project Lantern?”
Henry leaned over the screen.
His face went gray.
“I didn’t put that there.”
Ruth shook her head. “Neither did I.”
Leo clicked the folder.
Inside was a single video file dated six months earlier.
The thumbnail showed Henry sitting at his desk.
May you like
Across from him sat Claire.
And on the table between them was a signed document transferring Mercer Industries to someone named Leo Mercer.
