Chapter 13 - THE LAST LOYAL WITNESS
Only six people had access to the evidence vault.
One was Officer Ramirez.
Internal Affairs detained him before sunset.
Claire refused to believe it until security footage showed him entering the room alone. Twenty minutes later, the will was gone.
Ramirez said someone had threatened his teenage son.
“They sent me a live video from outside his school,” he confessed. “I took the file, but I didn’t give it to them.”
“Where is it?” Naomi asked.
“In the safest place I could think of.”
He had hidden it inside the courthouse’s public records scanner, between two sealed maintenance panels.
Federal agents recovered it before the Caldwells could reach it.
The attempt to steal the will gave prosecutors a new conspiracy charge. It also revealed Eleanor was still directing operations from her hospital bed through a private nurse.
Maya agreed to testify.
The night before the grand jury, her car was forced off a mountain road.
Claire and Rebecca reached the scene minutes after the crash. Maya’s vehicle hung against a guardrail above a steep ravine. Her daughter was not inside, but Maya was trapped behind the wheel.
Fuel spilled beneath the engine.
Claire climbed through the passenger window while Rebecca called rescue crews.
“Leave me,” Maya gasped. “The car is going.”
Claire cut the seat belt with a shard of glass.
“I already watched one Caldwell family dinner where everyone looked away,” she said. “I’m not doing it again.”
They pulled Maya free seconds before the car ignited.
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As firefighters arrived, Maya pressed a key into Claire’s hand.
“This opens Eleanor’s private safe,” she whispered. “There’s one recording inside that can end all of them.”
