Chapter 8 - What the Camera Could Not See
Emily looked at her mother.
Katherine’s silver hair was disordered, and a bruise darkened one side of her forehead. Her wrists were tied to the chair, but her eyes remained alert.
Furious.
Not defeated.
Vanessa tapped the papers with a pen.
“You have three minutes.”
Emily removed her wet coat slowly.
The transmitter beneath her blouse felt suddenly enormous.
She did not know whether the storm interfered with the signal.
She did not know whether Ortiz could hear them.
Daniel kept the gun aimed at her chest.
His hand trembled.
Vanessa noticed.
“Hold it properly.”
“Stop telling me what to do.”
“Then stop acting nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.”
“You’re shaking.”
Daniel turned toward her.
That was the opening Emily needed, but her mother was too close.
Any sudden move could get Katherine killed.
Emily approached the table.
“You don’t need Daniel anymore,” she said to Vanessa.
Vanessa’s eyes narrowed.
“Sign.”
“The accounts are traceable. The companies are exposed. Even if I sign, you can’t keep the money.”
“I have contacts outside the country.”
“Then why is he still here?”
Daniel looked at Vanessa.
Emily continued.
“He’s a witness to everything. He knows the company names, the previous targets, the forged documents.”
“Shut up,” Daniel said.
Vanessa watched him.
Emily picked up the pen.
“If you escape, Daniel becomes the person prosecutors pressure. He’ll trade you for a reduced sentence.”
“I would never,” Daniel said.
Vanessa’s expression did not change.
Emily looked at him.
“You blamed Rachel. You blamed me. Do you think Vanessa believes you won’t blame her?”
Daniel moved closer.
“She’s trying to divide us.”
“Because it’s working,” Vanessa said coldly.
Daniel’s head turned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means keep the gun pointed at her.”
Emily saw it then.
Vanessa did not trust him.
Perhaps she never had.
Daniel was not her partner.
He was an expendable tool.
Emily signed the first page with a false version of her signature.
Vanessa snatched it.
“This isn’t how you sign.”
“My hand is cold.”
“Do it again.”
Emily lowered herself into the chair.
“Untie my mother first.”
Vanessa laughed.
“You are not negotiating.”
“Then you can shoot me and lose access to everything.”
Daniel pressed the gun closer.
“Stop testing me.”
Emily looked into his eyes.
“Was any of it real?”
The question surprised him.
It surprised her too.
She had told herself it did not matter.
But she was not asking because she needed comfort.
She wanted him emotionally off balance.
Daniel swallowed.
“Yes.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes.
“Daniel.”
He ignored her.
“The night at the hospital,” he said. “When your mother had the stroke. That was real.”
Emily remembered him sitting beside her for thirteen hours.
He had brought coffee.
He had spoken softly to Katherine.
He had held Emily while she cried.
“Then how could you do this?” Emily asked.
His eyes filled with something almost like pain.
“Because loving you didn’t change what I needed.”
There it was.
The most honest sentence he had ever spoken.
He could feel affection and still choose greed.
He could comfort a woman while planning to rob her.
Love without conscience was not love anyone could survive.
Vanessa slapped the table.
“Enough.”
Katherine suddenly coughed violently.
Her body folded forward.
Vanessa stepped toward her.
Emily stood.
“My mother needs her medication.”
“She’ll survive.”
“She could have another stroke.”
Daniel looked worried.
Vanessa did not.
“That would simplify the trust issue.”
Daniel stared at his sister.
“What?”
Vanessa’s face remained calm.
“If Katherine dies after Emily signs the transfer, there is one fewer witness.”
Something changed in Daniel.
For all his crimes, he had apparently convinced himself no one would be physically harmed.
He looked at Katherine.
Then at the gun in his hand.
“You said we were only scaring them.”
Vanessa’s voice became contemptuous.
“And you believed that?”
“You said no one gets hurt.”
“You forged medical documents to kidnap a stroke patient. Don’t pretend you have principles now.”
Daniel’s breathing quickened.
“We take the papers and leave.”
“We finish the plan.”
“No.”
Vanessa reached inside her jacket.
Emily saw the second gun.
Vanessa aimed it at Daniel.
Katherine kicked the leg of the table.
The lamp fell.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Emily dropped to the floor.
Two gunshots exploded.
A window shattered.
Katherine screamed.
Emily crawled toward her mother as Daniel and Vanessa shouted.
The front door burst inward.
Police flooded the cabin.
“Drop the weapon!”
A third shot fired.
Then came a heavy impact.
Someone fell.
Emergency lights swept across the room.
Emily reached Katherine and shielded her body.
“Mom. I’m here.”
Katherine pressed her face into Emily’s shoulder.
Across the room, Daniel lay near the fireplace clutching his arm. Blood spread through his sleeve.
Vanessa stood behind the overturned table holding her gun against Nathan’s neck.
Emily’s heart stopped.
Nathan had entered with the second police team through the rear door.
Vanessa had grabbed him in the darkness.
“Back away!” Vanessa screamed.
Officers held their positions.
Nathan remained remarkably calm.
“Vanessa, this ends one of two ways.”
“Be quiet.”
“You leave here alive, or you don’t.”
“I said be quiet!”
Her hand shook.
Emily helped Katherine lie low behind the sofa.
Then she stood.
Vanessa pointed the gun toward her.
“You ruined everything.”
“No,” Emily said. “I noticed.”
“You think you’re strong because you inherited money?”
“I think I’m strong because you tried to destroy me and I’m still standing.”
Vanessa dragged Nathan toward the back door.
“Get me a vehicle.”
Ortiz spoke from near the entrance.
“There are no roads out that aren’t covered.”
“Then uncover one.”
Daniel groaned from the floor.
Vanessa glanced at him.
He looked up at his sister.
“You shot me.”
“You were in the way.”
Daniel’s face crumpled as he finally understood his value to her.
Nothing.
Emily saw his gun lying several feet from his hand.
Daniel saw it too.
He reached.
Vanessa turned her weapon toward him.
Nathan drove his elbow backward into her ribs.
The gun fired into the ceiling.
Officers rushed forward.
Vanessa fought with shocking strength, but Ortiz forced her down and handcuffed her.
Nathan stumbled away.
Daniel collapsed beside the fireplace.
Within minutes, the cabin filled with paramedics.
Katherine’s blood pressure was dangerously high, but she had not suffered another stroke.
Daniel’s bullet wound was serious but not fatal.
Vanessa screamed that the police had no idea who they were dealing with.
No one listened.
As paramedics carried Katherine outside, Daniel called Emily’s name.
She stopped but did not approach.
“I did love you,” he said.
Emily looked at the man she had married.
He appeared smaller now.
Not because he was wounded.
Because the performance had ended.
“You loved having access to me,” she replied. “That isn’t the same thing.”
“I can help you convict Vanessa.”
“You should help the truth because it’s the truth.”
“Will you visit me?”
Emily looked at the wedding band still absent from her hand.
“No.”
She walked outside with her mother.
The rain had softened.
Dawn was beginning to lighten the sky above Bellweather Lake.
For the first time since the wedding, Emily felt that the worst part might be over.
She was wrong.
Three days later, prosecutors opened the final laptop recovered from the basement.
Inside was a folder labeled CARTER—ORIGINAL SOURCE.
It contained private family records no outsider should have possessed.
At the bottom was a payment ledger.
Someone inside the Carter Foundation had sold Emily’s information to Vanessa two years earlier.
The seller’s initials were R.C.
May you like
Robert Carter.
Emily’s uncle.
