Chapter 10 - The Final Night
Anne died at St. Matthew’s Hospice at 4:16 in the morning.
I had been beside her until just after midnight.
Lily had developed a fever, and Anne insisted I take her home.
“She shouldn’t remember me like this,” Anne whispered.
I kissed her forehead and promised to return before sunrise.
At 3:40, the hospice called.
Anne’s condition had changed.
By the time I arrived, she was gone.
That was the story I had carried for six years.
Evan told a different one.
“My father visited her that night,” he said inside the police interview room.
Ruiz recorded from across the table.
“Why?” I asked.
“He wanted the original audit records.”
“How do you know?”
“I drove him.”
“You were eighteen.”
“He said it was a business emergency. He went inside alone.”
“How long?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“And then?”
“When he came back, he had an envelope. The next morning, he told me Anne Mercer had died.”
My hands clenched beneath the table.
“Are you saying he killed her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then choose your words carefully.”
Evan looked ill.
“I’m saying he was there, and the visit was erased from the hospice log.”
Ruiz leaned forward.
“Who erased it?”
“Paul Harlan.”
Harlan had known Anne.
Harlan had hidden the original campus report.
And Harlan had access to deleted security footage.
“Where is he now?” I asked.
Ruiz checked her phone.
“He hasn’t reported for duty.”
Grant, Connor and Pike were in custody. Their attorneys had stopped all questioning.
Richard Cross held a press conference and accused the police department of persecuting his family.
Malcolm Carver announced a temporary leave of absence.
The university tried to create distance between itself and the Founders Society.
But the ledger and Anne’s recording were now in the hands of federal prosecutors.
For the first time, the system had begun to crack.
I returned to Lily’s room.
She was sitting upright, reading the statement Evan had given police.
When she reached the section about Anne, she closed her eye.
I sat beside her.
“I’m sorry.”
She wrote:
YOU DIDN’T KNOW.
“I should have.”
MOM HID IT.
“To protect us.”
Lily erased the board.
DID IT WORK?
The question hurt because we both knew the answer.
“No.”
She reached for my hand.
For several minutes, neither of us moved.
Then Lily wrote:
EVAN SAVED MAYA.
“He also stood by while Grant attacked you.”
HE WAS AFRAID.
“So were you.”
I looked at her battered face.
“You still fought.”
Lily wrote slowly:
I HAD YOU.
Evan had spent his entire life beneath a father who controlled judges, police officers, university officials and politicians. Fear did not excuse him.
But it explained how cowardice had been trained into him.
Ruiz arrived carrying a tablet.
“We recovered part of the deleted science-building footage from an off-site backup.”
The video showed Lily beneath the awning.
The SUV stopped.
Evan stepped out first.
Connor and Grant followed.
There was no audio.
Lily held up her phone and appeared to say something.
Grant grabbed her.
Connor restrained her arms.
Evan struck the phone from her hand and slapped her once.
Then Lily said something else.
Evan stepped back.
Grant punched her.
The first blow dropped her to one knee.
The second drove her against the brick wall.
I forced myself to continue watching.
Grant struck her repeatedly while Connor held her upright.
Evan shouted and tried to pull him away.
Grant pushed Evan aside.
Finally, Lily fell.
The footage ended when a fourth man entered the frame.
Paul Harlan.
He checked Lily’s pulse.
Then he pointed toward the camera.
The video cut out.
Harlan had not attacked her.
He had arrived afterward.
But instead of calling for help, he erased the footage.
“Why?” I asked.
Ruiz replayed the final seconds.
Harlan knelt beside Lily.
His mouth moved.
Lily stared at the screen.
Then she grabbed the board.
HE SAID HE WAS SORRY.
“For what?”
SHE LOOKED LIKE MOM.
Harlan had known Anne well enough to see her in Lily’s face.
Ruiz received a call.
She listened without speaking, then ended it.
“What happened?” I asked.
“They found Harlan’s vehicle near the river.”
“Was he inside?”
“No.”
On the driver’s seat was an envelope addressed to me.
Ruiz opened it in front of witnesses.
The letter was handwritten.
Daniel,
I failed Anne.
When she discovered the fund, I promised to help. Richard threatened my wife, my career and my son. I told myself I was staying close so I could reduce the damage.
That was the lie I used for six years.
When I found Lily, she was conscious. She looked at me exactly the way Anne did when I betrayed her.
I erased the footage because Richard said Grant would be protected either way, but Lily would be killed if the recording remained.
I believed him.
I was wrong again.
The original file still exists. Anne created a mirror archive tied to the university observatory. Lily found it.
Richard knows.
He will go there tonight.
P.H.
Beneath the initials was a final sentence.
If I disappear, do not believe I took my own life.
Ruiz checked the time.
The university observatory opened for a public meteor event in less than three hours.
Hundreds of students and families would be there.
Richard Cross was not simply going to retrieve the archive.
May you like
He was going to destroy it.
Even if the building was full.
