Chapter 18 - THE WOMAN IN THE SUV
Police surrounded the SUV.
Rebecca was not inside.
A laptop sat on the passenger seat streaming a prerecorded video.
Rebecca smiled from the screen.
"You always look where you're told."
Torres swore.
Then the safe house alarm sounded.
Smoke rolled from the rear hallway.
Not fire.
A smoke canister.
Security moved Lily and Noah toward the front exit.
Adrian stayed between them.
A woman in paramedic clothing came through the side door.
Noah shouted first.
"Rebecca!"
She pulled off the cap.
A pistol appeared.
"Nobody move."
Adrian stepped in front of the children.
"This ends now."
Rebecca's eyes were wet.
"It ended years ago. You just kept benefiting from it."
"From Claire dying?"
"From a company that ate everybody around it."
"Then why come for my kids?"
"Because they own the votes."
There it was.
Always the shares.
Always power dressed as necessity.
Lily began crying.
Rebecca looked at her.
Her hand shook.
Noah whispered, "She isn't gonna shoot us."
Rebecca snapped, "Be quiet."
"You don't want to."
"Noah."
"You keep saying it's business."
Rebecca's face broke.
For half a second, the gun lowered.
Torres fired a beanbag round from the hallway.
Rebecca dropped the weapon.
Officers tackled her.
Adrian pulled both children against him.
Later, Rebecca confessed to fraud, conspiracy, evidence destruction, and helping conceal Claire's homicide.
Owen accepted a plea after doctors cleared him.
Vanessa faced child abuse, unlawful restraint, fraud, and conspiracy charges.
Martin Cole resigned from every board and was charged for his role in the cover-up.
It should have felt over.
Then the family court called.
Vanessa had filed for visitation with Lily and Noah from jail.
Adrian laughed when Lowell told him.
Lowell did not.
"She has one argument."
"What?"
May you like
"That you knew she was disciplining them and did nothing."
Adrian stopped smiling.
