Chapter 5 - THE BLUE LEDGER
The gunshot exploded through the chapel.
I didn't feel the bullet.
I heard a body fall behind me.
I turned.
The man who had been raising a pistol toward the back of my skull collapsed against a pew, his weapon skidding across the stone floor.
Nathan was already moving.
“DOWN!”
I grabbed Mia and dragged her behind the altar as Nathan fired into the lights.
Darkness swallowed the chapel.
Claire screamed.
Glass shattered.
One of Raymond's men shouted from the side aisle.
I heard Nathan slam into somebody.
A weapon hit the floor.
Another shot cracked overhead.
Then a flashlight flashed twice.
Our old signal.
Right side clear.
I grabbed the dropped pistol and moved.
Twenty seconds later, three of Raymond's men were disarmed.
A fourth escaped through the rear door.
Nathan locked it behind him.
Claire stood shaking near the confessional.
I crossed the chapel in four strides and slammed Nathan against the wall.
“You pointed a rifle at me.”
“Yes.”
“You could have warned me.”
“No.”
“You said trust me once.”
“And you did.”
“I dropped my weapon because six men entered the room.”
“Then let's call it personal growth.”
I nearly hit him.
Mia shouted.
“Both of you stop!”
She stood beside the altar, furious.
“My daughter is still in that boathouse.”
That ended the argument.
Nathan straightened his coat.
“We have maybe ten minutes before Raymond realizes his team failed.”
Claire spoke from behind us.
“Less.”
I turned.
She looked exhausted.
“Why?”
“Because he'll move Harper.”
“You know his plan.”
“I know how he thinks.”
“Then start talking.”
Claire sat slowly on a pew.
“Raymond recruited me three years ago, but he's been stealing from the Vale family for much longer.”
“How long?”
“Since before your father died.”
Nathan looked at her sharply.
“What did you say?”
Claire swallowed.
“The blue ledger wasn't Victor's account of his own payments.”
She looked at me.
“It was evidence.”
“Against Raymond?”
“Against Raymond and seven other people.”
The wine invoices suddenly made sense.
My father hadn't been hiding money.
He'd been tracking it.
Claire continued.
“Victor discovered that Raymond had created shell companies inside your legitimate businesses. Northstar was one of them. Construction contracts. Foundation grants. Insurance payments. Small enough individually that nobody noticed.”
“Except my father.”
“Yes.”
“What happened when he noticed?”
Claire didn't answer.
Nathan did.
“He died.”
My eyes moved toward him.
My father's death had been ruled an accident.
Rain.
Mountain road.
Brake failure.
His car went through a guardrail in West Virginia while returning from a private meeting.
I was thirty-one.
Nathan had been one of the first people at the scene.
“What aren't you telling me?”
Nathan looked toward the chapel floor.
“Nathan.”
“I inspected the car before the insurance company took it.”
A strange pressure filled my chest.
“You never told me.”
“Your father made me promise that if anything happened to him, I was to protect you before I investigated.”
“Investigated what?”
“The brake line had been cut.”
The chapel disappeared around me.
For nine years, I had pictured my father's final seconds as an accident.
Bad weather.
Bad luck.
Now those memories rearranged themselves into murder.
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“For nine years?”
“I couldn't prove who ordered it.”
I grabbed him by the shirt.
“You should have told me.”
“And watched you start a war with eight people when we didn't know which one killed him?”
“My father was murdered.”
“I know!”
Nathan's voice cracked.
For the first time all night, he stopped looking like my right hand.
He looked like the twenty-six-year-old kid who had once followed my father everywhere.
“He was family to me too.”
I released him.
Mia stepped closer.
“The ledger can prove it?”
Claire nodded.
“Partly. Victor recorded meetings.”
“Where?”
“The back cover has a storage card hidden inside it.”
Nathan stared at her.
“How do you know?”
“Raymond told me.”
“Why would he tell you?”
“He didn't plan on me living long enough to repeat it.”
Nobody spoke.
Claire gave a humorless smile.
“You weren't the only person he intended to remove after the wedding.”
We left the chapel through the rear crypt tunnel.
Claire came with us because leaving her behind meant Raymond could reclaim her.
Mia moved faster than Dr. Patel would have approved.
Nobody tried to stop her.
Halfway through the tunnel, she suddenly froze.
“The key.”
I turned.
“What key?”
“The ledger wasn't loose when I found it.”
She pressed both hands against her temples.
“I put it in the old iron document box after I photographed it.”
“Where?”
“Your father's mausoleum.”
Nathan stared at her.
“You found the lower vault?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I manage this house. Unlike all of you, I actually read maintenance records.”
Under any other circumstances, I might have laughed.
“What key?”
“The little brass key from the cabinet.”
“Where is it?”
She looked at me.
Then horror spread across her face.
“Harper.”
My stomach dropped.
“What about Harper?”
“I didn't trust hiding it in the room after I put the flash drive in Benny.”
She was breathing faster.
“So I sewed it into the hem of Harper's yellow nightgown.”
The yellow nightgown Harper had been wearing when she grabbed my coat.
The yellow nightgown she was still wearing when she was kidnapped.
“Raymond has the key,” Nathan said.
“Only if he knows where to look.”
Claire stood very still.
“He knows.”
Mia turned toward her.
“How?”
“I heard him ask about the yellow dress.”
We ran.
The river boathouse sat a quarter mile beyond the chapel, down a wooded slope.
By the time we reached it, the black SUV was gone.
The main door hung open.
“Harper!”
Mia rushed inside.
“Mia!”
I followed.
Empty.
Chairs overturned.
A lamp burning.
Food wrappers.
A child's paper cup.
Then I heard a tiny sound from below us.
“Mommy?”
Mia dropped to her knees.
“Harper!”
A storage compartment beneath the floor had been locked from outside.
Nathan broke it open.
Harper climbed out.
Mia pulled her into her arms so hard that both of them fell backward.
I turned away for a second.
Not because I didn't want to see it.
Because I did.
Too much.
Harper cried into Mia's neck.
“I was quiet like you taught me.”
“You were perfect, baby.”
“The bad man left.”
“When?”
“He got mad.”
“What happened?”
Harper lifted the hem of her nightgown.
Someone had cut it open.
Mia closed her eyes.
The key was gone.
Nathan swore.
Harper touched Mia's face.
“I bit him.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
Mia laughed and cried at the same time.
“Good girl.”
Nathan checked the room.
“Fresh tire tracks. Heading east.”
“Toward the mansion,” I said.
Claire shook her head.
“The mausoleum.”
We left Harper with Marcus, who arrived with a second security team, while Mia refused to stay behind.
This time I didn't argue.
The family mausoleum stood beneath ancient oak trees behind St. Agnes.
The iron door was already open.
We entered.
My father's stone crypt rested against the far wall.
Nathan pressed a hidden mechanism beneath the inscription.
A section of marble moved aside.
Behind it, stairs descended underground.
Claire whispered, “Raymond never knew the exact location.”
“He does now.”
At the bottom, we found him.
Raymond Sloan stood before an old steel vault.
Two armed men flanked him.
He held the little brass key between his fingers.
His smile was almost paternal.
“You always were difficult, Dominic.”
I raised my gun.
His guards raised theirs.
Mia stood behind me.
Nathan moved to my right.
Claire remained on the stairs.
Raymond inserted the key.
“Don't,” Mia said.
He turned it.
Click.
The lock released.
Raymond opened the steel door.
For the first time all night, real excitement appeared on his face.
Then it vanished.
The vault was empty.
No ledger.
No documents.
Nothing.
Except an old cell phone sitting on a wooden shelf.
Its screen turned on automatically.
A recording began.
My father's voice filled the chamber.
Older.
Tired.
unmistakable.
“Raymond, if you're hearing this, you found the vault.”
Raymond's face drained of color.
May you like
My father's recording continued.
“And if you found the vault, then you already lost.”
