Chapter 8 - The Accident Wasn’t an Accident
My mother’s car accident had happened on a rainy night in November.
I was eleven.
She survived the crash.
Then died two days later in the hospital from internal complications.
That was what I had always been told.
Margaret sat across from me in the blue room and destroyed that story in less than a minute.
“Charles ordered someone to follow Laura when she was pregnant.”
“Who?”
“Robert Caldwell.”
Daniel swore under his breath.
“Robert sabotaged her car.”
I stared at Margaret.
“When she was pregnant with me?”
“Yes.”
“She survived.”
“Yes.”
“And I was born.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did she die eleven years later?”
Margaret looked away.
The answer was already in her face.
“No.”
“Emily—”
“No.”
I stood so fast the chair fell backward.
“You’re going to tell me that wasn’t an accident either.”
Margaret began crying again.
“Charles believed Laura still had the ledger.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“So he killed her?”
“I don’t know if he ordered the second crash.”
“That means you think he might have.”
“Yes.”
My hands went numb.
Daniel stepped toward me.
I backed away.
Not because I blamed him.
Because I couldn’t stand anyone touching me.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone froze.
I answered.
“Hello?”
A man whispered, “Emily?”
My heart stopped.
“Who is this?”
“Michael.”
I gripped the phone.
“Dad?”
Silence.
Then a broken breath.
“Yes.”
My knees nearly collapsed.
“Where are you?”
“I don’t have much time.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay.”
“Someone took you.”
“They were looking for the flash drive.”
“Who?”
“Robert’s people.”
“Robert is dead.”
Michael laughed weakly.
“No, Emily.”
Everyone in the room heard.
“Robert Caldwell is alive.”
Vanessa had told us her father died six months earlier.
Another lie.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does he want?”
“The ledger.”
“We don’t have it.”
“You’re closer than you think.”
“My mother said to find the blue room.”
Silence.
Then Michael said, “Did you find the letters?”
“Yes.”
“Then find the clock.”
I looked around.
There was no clock.
“What clock?”
“Laura made one for Daniel when he was a baby.”
Daniel suddenly looked at the wall.
A wooden moon-shaped decoration hung above the old crib.
He pulled it down.
The back had a tiny mechanical clock built inside.
Daniel opened the battery compartment.
A folded piece of paper fell out.
Numbers.
Bank accounts.
Dates.
And one address.
Michael whispered through the phone:
“That address is where your mother hid the original ledger.”
“Dad, where are you?”
A noise interrupted him.
A door opening.
Michael inhaled sharply.
“Emily, listen to me.”
“What?”
“If Robert reaches that address before you do, everything disappears.”
Then I heard another man’s voice.
Calm.
Older.
“Michael?”
The line went dead.
I stared at Daniel.
He looked at the address.
“It’s in Manhattan.”
Margaret went pale.
“What building?”
Daniel read it aloud.
“Caldwell & Pierce headquarters.”
Vanessa’s family law firm.
The ledger had been hidden inside the enemy’s building for nearly thirty years.
May you like
And before we could move, the mansion’s security alarm began screaming.
Someone had just entered through the basement.
