Chapter 8 - ELENA’S HOUSE
Arthur answered.
No one spoke.
Then he heard the sound of glass breaking inside his house.
“Team Three, move to my residence,” Mara ordered.
Arthur helped Lily into an SUV. Richard remained under guard beside the greenhouse.
“Let me come,” he said.
Lily stared at him. “You had years to stand beside me.”
He lowered his eyes.
The convoy reached Arthur’s home in eleven minutes.
The front door was open. The kitchen had been torn apart. Cabinets hung from broken hinges. Elena’s photographs lay smashed on the floor.
Arthur walked through the wreckage with his weapon drawn.
Nothing in the living room.
Nothing upstairs.
Then he noticed Elena’s old sewing cabinet had been moved.
Behind it was a narrow panel he had never seen.
Lily touched the hidden latch. “Mom built this?”
Arthur opened the panel.
Inside was a small safe, a cassette recorder, and a yellow Easter egg painted with blue flowers.
Lily recognized it immediately. “I made that when I was six.”
Arthur opened the egg.
A micro-storage card fell into his palm.
Mara inserted it into a secured reader.
A spreadsheet appeared: names, dates, property transfers, medical evaluations, judges’ signatures, and payments.
Twelve families.
Forty-three victims.
Over nine hundred million dollars in stolen assets.
At the bottom was one name Arthur did not expect.
Lily Miller Whitmore.
Next to it: PHASE TWO — TERMINATION AUTHORIZED.
Lily stepped back. “Termination?”
Arthur’s voice turned hard. “They planned to kill you after taking control of your money.”
A new file opened automatically.
Elena appeared on-screen again.
“Arthur, the list is not enough,” she said. “They own the people who would prosecute them. You need the original payment keys.”
“Where?” Arthur whispered.
Elena looked directly into the camera.
“Richard has them. He just doesn’t know it.”
At that moment, Mara’s radio crackled.
“Deputy Director, prisoner transport has been hit.”
Arthur turned.
“Which prisoner?”
May you like
The answer came through static.
“Richard Whitmore is gone.”
