Chapter 9 - THE RACE ACROSS THE SKY
Evelyn grabbed the satellite phone, dialing the direct, encrypted private line that bypassed the estate switchboard.
The phone rang once. Twice. Three times.
“Richard Sterling,” her father’s voice answered, crisp, authoritative, completely untroubled.
Hearing that voice after everything that had transpired almost broke Evelyn’s composure. She squeezed the plastic receiver so hard the casing groaned.
“Dad,” she said.
“Evie? Darling, why are you calling on the satellite line? Is everything all right with the yacht?”
“Listen to me very carefully,” Evelyn said, her voice trembling with a deadly fury that made her father pause on the other end of the line. “Step out of the house. Do not get into the Mercedes. Do not let Marcus Cole touch the luggage.”
A heavy silence fell over the phone.
“Evelyn, what are you talking about?”
“Flynn tried to kill me, Dad. Aidan and Fiona are sitting at my feet in zip-ties on a rescue tender sixty miles off the coast of Florida. The Sterling Grace is at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.”
She heard her father’s breath catch sharply.
“Flynn... what?”
“They know about the Northern Star,” Evelyn said, watching Aidan flinch at the sound of the name. “They know about the fifty million dollars you paid to keep your pristine reputation intact. And they hired Marcus Cole to send your car over the canyon cliff in forty minutes.”
“My God,” Richard Sterling whispered. The aristocratic confidence evaporated instantly, replaced by the trembling voice of an old man whose sins had finally arrived at his doorstep. “Evie... where are you? Are you safe?”
“The Coast Guard is converging on my beacon right now,” Evelyn said, looking up as the thrum of heavy twin rotors began to vibrate through the morning air.
Three miles to the north, an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter bearing the bright orange and white livery of the United States Coast Guard broke through the low-hanging clouds, its searchlight painting the ocean swell in blinding white light.
“I am alive because I fought for it,” Evelyn said coldly into the phone. “Not because of your name, and not because of your money. When I get to the mainland, federal marshals will be waiting for Aidan and Fiona. And Dad?”
“Yes, darling?”
“You’re going to call the Department of Justice yourself. You’re going to open the archives on the Atlantic Freight Consortium. Every transaction, every payoff, every bribe. You’re going to tell the truth about what you covered up twenty-two years ago.”
“Evelyn... that will destroy the company. It will destroy everything I built for you.”
“You didn't build it for me,” Evelyn said, watching the Coast Guard helicopter bank sharply toward their tender, the downdraft whipping the surface of the sea into white foam. “You built it for your ego. If you don't call them, I will hand the originals from Flynn’s briefcase directly to the Attorney General the moment my feet touch the tarmac.”
She terminated the call.
The Jayhawk hovered forty feet above the water. A rescue swimmer dropped cleanly into the swell, swimming toward the tender with powerful strokes.
Nora looked at Evelyn, tears glistening in her eyes. “What will happen to us?”
May you like
Evelyn looked down at her bloody hands, then back toward the rising sun.
“The truth,” Evelyn said softly. “Finally.”
