Chapter 16 - THE MISSING SHOE
We searched the storage unit again.
Nothing.
Then Mom asked a question none of us had considered.
“What was in the shoe?”
I stared at her.
“What do you mean?”
“The day I fell. I had tucked something under the insole.”
Mom had become so afraid of Bianca moving her things that she had started hiding small items in places no one would think to check.
That morning, she had hidden a tiny memory card inside her shoe.
“What was on it?” Ortiz asked.
Mom’s eyes narrowed.
“Recordings.”
She had bought a small voice recorder after finding the duplicate glasses. Whenever Bianca confronted her privately, Mom switched it on.
My mother had been collecting proof.
The memory card contained weeks of conversations.
And Bianca had taken the shoe.
“That’s why she wouldn’t help you out of the pool,” I said.
Mom nodded. “I think she saw it floating loose.”
Suddenly, the pool scene made even more sense.
Bianca had not only been willing to let Mom drown.
She had been waiting for evidence to disappear with her.
Two hours later, a call came from an unknown number.
I answered on speaker with Ortiz beside me.
Bianca said, “You found Owen.”
My whole body tightened.
“Where are you?”
“Still asking the wrong questions.”
“What do you want?”
“The notebook Martha kept. The East Ridge audit. And five hundred thousand dollars.”
Ortiz silently wrote: KEEP HER TALKING.
“In exchange for what?” I asked.
Bianca laughed.
“For the recording your mother was stupid enough to hide in her shoe.”
Mom closed her eyes.
So Bianca had it.
“What’s on the recording?”
“You know enough.”
“Then why do you care?”
A pause.
For the first time, I heard strain in her voice.
“Because one part of it is not what you think.”
“Where do you want to meet?”
Another pause.
Then she said, “Where we were supposed to get married.”
The Hawthorne Estate.
Our wedding venue.
“Tomorrow. Six p.m. Come alone.”
May you like
Before hanging up, Bianca added one more thing.
“Wear the suit you bought for the ceremony.”
