Chapter 21 - The Ledger
We returned to Chicago that afternoon.
My parents refused police protection until I threatened to move into their house with six security guards.
My father finally surrendered.
“You inherited your stubbornness from your mother.”
My mother stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
It was the first time anyone laughed all day.
Then Claire called.
She had remembered something.
A ledger.
Margaret kept it behind a false wall in the old lake house.
The property had been seized after the trial but hadn't yet sold.
Frank, Victoria, and I drove there before midnight.
The house smelled abandoned.
Dust covered everything.
I hated being inside another Vance property.
My body remembered before my mind did.
Victoria noticed.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“You're lying.”
“Yes.”
She squeezed my shoulder.
We found the false wall behind the pantry.
Inside was a steel box.
Frank opened it.
Cash.
Passports.
Photographs.
And one black ledger.
Victoria turned the first page.
Names.
Payments.
Judges.
Police officers.
Contractors.
Politicians.
Then she stopped.
Her father's name appeared repeatedly.
So did Richard's.
And Margaret's.
But near the final pages was another name.
Frank stared at it.
“No.”
“What?” I asked.
He turned the book toward me.
The name was familiar.
Detective Samuel Pierce.
The man who had helped prosecute Margaret.
The man Frank trusted.
The man currently assigned to protect my parents.
My phone rang.
Mom.
I answered immediately.
“Mom?”
No response.
“Mom?”
Then a man's voice.
“Emily.”
I looked at the ledger.
Detective Pierce.
“Where are my parents?”
May you like
“They're safe.”
“For now.”
