CHAPTER 17 BRENDA’S LAST TRUTH
We reached Brenda’s apartment with police.
The door was open.
Furniture had been overturned.
Blood marked the kitchen floor.
But there was no body.
A message had been written on the wall.
THE LEDGER IS INCOMPLETE.
Andrew searched the bedroom.
He found a hidden compartment behind a mirror.
Inside was a letter addressed to me.
Brenda had written it days earlier.
If something happens to me, ask Clara about the second book.
We returned to Vermont.
Clara broke down.
“There were two ledgers,” she said.
“One tracked money.”
“The other tracked people.”
“What people?”
“Children.”
The network had used private charities to move children between institutions, wealthy families, and political donors.
Not all adoptions were legal.
Some children had been taken from living parents.
My stomach turned.
“Who has the second book?”
Clara looked at Andrew.
“His father gave it to Margaret.”
Margaret was transferred from prison for questioning.
At first, she refused to cooperate.
Then Andrew entered.
She looked at him through the glass.
“My boy.”
“Don’t call me that.”
Her face tightened.
“You came because you need me.”
“I came because children disappeared.”
“I protected you.”
“You protected yourself.”
He leaned closer.
“Where is the ledger?”
Margaret’s eyes filled with tears.
Real or rehearsed, I could not tell.
“At the mansion.”
The mansion had been seized after the trial.
She gave us instructions to a compartment beneath the ballroom floor.
The same ballroom where Andrew had slapped me.
We returned at night.
I stood on the marble where my blood had once fallen.
Andrew could not look at the spot.
We opened the hidden compartment.
Inside lay the ledger.
And Brenda.
Alive.
Bound.
Unconscious.
Someone had placed her there hours earlier.
When she woke, she whispered one name.
“Rafael.”
I turned slowly toward my father.
May you like
He stood in the doorway.
A gun was in his hand.
