Chapter 6
The first bullet struck the wall above my head.
I pulled Rosie to the floor and covered her.
The second bullet shattered the lock.
Detective Torres came from the kitchen with her weapon drawn.
She fired through the damaged door.
The man outside ran.
Federal agents captured him in the stairwell.
He was not a police officer.
He was a private security contractor employed by Caldwell Construction.
His identification was real enough to pass a routine check because Captain Gaines had entered him into the department system.
Dad’s corruption reached deeper than I imagined.
Rosie would never be safe while he remained free.
The contractor agreed to cooperate after prosecutors showed him the attempted-murder charges.
He said Dad and Bethany were moving through company properties with Gaines’s help.
Their next destination was the unfinished hotel.
They planned to destroy the red room and the section of railing from which Lucas fell.
Police prepared an operation.
I wanted to go.
Torres refused.
“You are their target.”
“That site belongs to me if Lucas was right.”
“It is also eight stories of unstable concrete.”
I stayed with Rosie at the command center while agents entered the hotel.
Live body-camera footage filled several screens.
They reached the eighth floor.
The red room was empty.
Every shelf had been removed.
Then an explosion shook the building.
One camera went dark.
Dad had rigged the evidence room to collapse.
Torres and two agents were trapped behind fallen concrete.
Bethany appeared on another camera, running toward the roof.
Captain Gaines followed her.
Dad was nowhere in sight.
A helicopter waited above the building.
Bethany climbed toward it.
An agent caught her at the roof access door.
She struck him with a metal bar.
The weapon looked like the one Mom had described.
Torres pulled herself from the debris and tackled Bethany before she reached the helicopter.
Gaines aimed his gun at Torres.
Another agent shot him in the shoulder.
Both fugitives were taken into custody.
But Dad escaped through an underground service tunnel.
Inside Bethany’s backpack, investigators found the missing trust amendment.
It proved I owned fifty-one percent of Caldwell Construction.
Dad had hidden it for twelve years.
There was also a handwritten confession signed by Bethany.
It claimed she alone had killed Lucas.
“She planned to give this to police if they caught her,” Agent Price said.
“Why would she confess?”
“Because your father promised to help her escape after she accepted the blame.”
Bethany’s attorney asked for a private meeting with me.
I almost refused.
Then Bethany said she knew where Dad was taking Mom.
Mom had vanished from protective custody during the hotel raid.
Inside the interview room, Bethany looked smaller without her expensive clothes and wineglass.
“Dad will kill her,” she said.
“You told him where police were keeping her.”
“I thought he wanted to stop her from testifying.”
“What did you think that meant?”
Bethany looked away.
“You pushed Lucas,” I said.
“He attacked me.”
“The video shows you arriving with a metal pipe.”
“He was destroying our family.”
“He was exposing theft.”
“He wanted to give you the company.”
“It was already mine.”
Her eyes filled with the same jealousy I had seen since childhood.
Dad had trained us to compete for his approval.
Bethany had spent her life winning.
Now she had destroyed everything to keep it.
“Where is Mom?” I asked.
“At the quarry.”
Caldwell Construction owned an abandoned stone quarry outside the county.
Dad used to take Bethany and me there as children.
There were deep pits filled with black water.
Agent Price ordered an immediate rescue.
As officers led Bethany away, she caught my sleeve.
“Claire, there’s something you don’t know.”
“What?”
“Mom didn’t just watch Lucas die.”
I pulled away.
May you like
Bethany’s voice followed me.
“She helped Dad remove the safety rope from his body.”
