Chapter 14 - The Last Door
I called Emily.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Harris was already moving.
"Get units to the safe house!"
I felt sick.
Patricia had made us focus on Daniel.
On the recording.
On the lake.
While someone else moved toward Emily.
But who?
Malcolm was in custody.
Victor was with us.
Brandon was jailed.
Officer Keene was detained.
Then Daniel said one name.
"Brandon."
"He's in jail."
"Check."
Harris called.
His face changed.
Brandon had been transported earlier that evening for an emergency medical evaluation after collapsing in his cell.
During transfer, the ambulance was struck by another vehicle.
One guard was injured.
Brandon disappeared.
Red Fern again.
Patricia had planned contingencies everywhere.
We drove toward the safe house.
Police arrived first.
Front door open.
One officer unconscious but alive.
Emily and Grace gone.
I screamed my daughter's name anyway.
On the dining table lay Grace's blanket.
Beside it, Brandon's wedding ring.
A phone rang.
Harris answered.
Brandon.
"Put Margaret on."
I grabbed it.
"Where is my daughter?"
"She's alive."
"Grace?"
"Alive."
"If you hurt them—"
"I didn't take them to hurt them."
"You locked them in a car!"
His voice cracked.
"I know!"
"Where are they?"
"My mother has them."
My blood turned cold.
"You helped her."
"I thought she was getting us out."
"Us?"
"She said we could leave the country. Start over."
"With the baby?"
"Grace is my daughter."
"And Emily?"
Silence.
"Brandon?"
"My mother doesn't want Emily."
I stopped breathing.
"Where?"
"I don't know exactly."
"You're lying."
"I'm not."
He sounded terrified.
"She changed the destination after we left."
"Then how are you calling?"
"I jumped out when we stopped for gas."
I almost laughed from disbelief.
"You abandoned them again."
"No."
"That's exactly what you did."
"I called you."
"Give me the location."
He described the gas station.
Police found him ten minutes later.
Under interrogation, he gave them Patricia's intended route.
She had talked about crossing into Canada using fake IDs.
But weather closed part of the northern highway.
She would need another route.
Brandon remembered a private airstrip used by one of Red Fern's clients.
State police raced there.
Nothing.
Then I remembered Patricia's call.
If I cannot have Grace, neither will you.
She didn't want to escape with Grace.
She wanted leverage.
A final act of ownership.
Where would she go?
Somewhere symbolic.
Somewhere connected to Thomas.
Blackwater?
No.
The office?
Burned.
Then Emily's childhood home.
My house.
The one Patricia had burned.
It was still standing, though badly damaged.
And it contained one place Thomas built himself.
A storm shelter beneath the garage.
"Go back to my house."
Harris stared at me.
"Why?"
"Patricia knows about the shelter."
"How?"
"We used it during a tornado warning after Emily and Brandon's wedding rehearsal. Patricia was there."
Police redirected.
When we arrived, the property looked abandoned.
Fire damage blackened the upper windows.
Yellow tape moved in the wind.
Then an officer found fresh tire tracks behind the garage.
The storm shelter door was locked from inside.
"Emily!"
No answer.
"Grace!"
My granddaughter couldn't answer.
Police worked on the door.
Then Emily's voice came faintly through the metal.
"Mom!"
"I'm here!"
"She has a gun!"
Everything stopped.
Harris motioned everyone back.
Patricia shouted from inside.
"Margaret!"
"I'm here."
"Come down alone."
"No."
"Then you won't see them again."
Harris shook his head.
I ignored him.
"Let Grace out."
"No."
"She's three weeks old."
"And worth millions."
Even now.
Money.
Control.
Ownership.
I felt something in me become calm.
"Grace is worth nothing to you."
Patricia laughed.
"You don't understand trusts."
"No. You don't understand family."
Silence.
"You think Thomas protected money. He didn't."
"Don't lecture me about Thomas."
"He beat you."
Her voice sharpened.
"He died."
"And you're hiding underground from evidence he left eighteen months ago."
Silence.
"You burned his office. You ran across states. You kidnapped people. You couldn't erase him."
"Stop."
"You couldn't even erase Frank."
"Stop."
"Michael knows who you are."
"STOP!"
A gunshot thundered inside.
I screamed.
Then Grace cried.
Alive.
Emily shouted, "We're okay!"
Harris motioned officers toward another access point.
I kept Patricia talking.
"Patricia, there is nowhere left."
"I have Grace."
"No."
My voice trembled with anger.
"You are standing near her. You will never have her."
The second access panel opened behind the shelter.
Officers entered.
Patricia heard them.
Another gunshot.
Then shouting.
I dropped to my knees.
Seconds later, an officer appeared.
"Clear!"
I ran.
Emily sat against the concrete wall with Grace in her arms.
I fell beside them.
"Mom."
I held both.
Grace screamed.
It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.
Across the shelter, Patricia lay on the floor in handcuffs.
Alive.
An officer pressed a bandage against a wound in her shoulder.
She stared at Emily.
"This isn't over."
Emily looked at her husband’s mother.
Then at Grace.
Then back at Patricia.
"Yes."
Her voice was steady.
"It is."
Three months later, the first major hearings began.
Patricia faced charges connected to Thomas's death, the plot against Emily, kidnapping, financial crimes, bribery, and more.
Malcolm agreed to testify.
Victor pleaded guilty to multiple charges and cooperated.
Nicole received charges for her role in the car incident but continued helping prosecutors.
Brandon remained in custody.
His attorneys argued he had been manipulated by his mother.
Perhaps he had.
But manipulation did not erase choices.
He had watched Emily hit the window.
He had looked at his newborn daughter.
And he had driven away.
Emily filed for divorce.
Then came the custody hearing.
Brandon wanted supervised visitation eventually.
Emily opposed it.
The courtroom was packed.
Patricia's lawyers tried one final strategy.
They attacked Emily.
Her counseling history.
Her postpartum exhaustion.
Her angry messages after discovering the affair.
Then Emily's lawyer played the driveway footage.
Brandon holding the key.
Emily trapped inside.
Grace's hand against the glass.
Nobody in the courtroom moved.
Then the lawyer played Thomas's recording.
My daughter's father, dead eighteen months, spoke into the silence.
"My daughter is not for sale."
Emily began crying.
So did I.
The judge removed his glasses.
Then he issued temporary orders granting Emily sole physical and legal custody pending final proceedings and barring Brandon from contact without future court authorization.
Outside the courthouse, reporters shouted questions.
Emily ignored them.
She walked down the steps holding Grace.
I followed.
For the first time since that terrible afternoon, the sun felt warm instead of dangerous.
But one case remained.
Thomas.
May you like
Patricia's murder trial.
And prosecutors told me they wanted me to be the final witness.
