Chapter 11 - AUNT VIVIAN
Rachel answered on speaker.
“Vivian?”
A calm voice replied.
“I heard Thomas is missing.”
Rachel looked at Ruiz.
Nobody outside the search team knew that.
“Who told you?”
Silence.
Then Vivian sighed.
“You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”
Lorraine closed her eyes.
“Viv.”
“Oh, don’t sound so wounded, Lorraine.”
Rachel went cold. Vivian continued.
“Thomas was going to destroy a company that feeds four thousand families because he suddenly developed a conscience about money his grandfather took before he was born.”
“You tried to kill him,” Rachel said.
“I tried to stop him.”
“By burying him alive?”
“I was told he was dead.”
Mercer laughed from the floor.
“Liar.”
Vivian ignored him.
“Rachel, take Madison and leave. I’ll make sure you never need money again.”
Rachel looked at Thomas.
His face twisted with fury.
“You threatened my daughter.”
“That was Mercer’s stupidity.”
“Everything becomes somebody else’s fault with you.”
Vivian’s voice sharpened.
“Thomas, listen to me. You expose those ledgers and people far worse than me will come after all of you.”
“Then let them.”
A pause.
“You always were your father’s disappointment.”
Thomas actually smiled.
“Best compliment you ever gave me.”
Vivian hung up.
Ruiz ordered a warrant, but Vivian had vanished. In her office they found a handwritten schedule listing Thomas’s collapse, hospital transfer, death certification, funeral preparation, and burial—each assigned a time.
Rachel stared at one line:
FRIDAY, 10:30 A.M. — INTERMENT COMPLETE.
Madison had climbed into Thomas’s coffin Thursday night.
One night later, and no one would have discovered the mistake.
Then Ruiz turned the page.
There was another name beneath Thomas’s.
RACHEL CLARKE.
Beside it was a date.
May you like
Saturday.
Tomorrow.
