Chapter 13 - MADISON’S CHOICE
Rachel forgot the gun.
She forgot the wire.
She forgot every instruction Ruiz had given her.
“Madison, run!”
Madison didn’t.
She stood beside the altar clutching Thomas’s wedding ring in one hand.
“I wanted Dad.”
Vivian kept the pistol aimed toward Rachel but watched the child.
“How did you get here?”
Madison pointed toward the side door.
“Grandma brought me.”
Rachel’s stomach dropped.
Lorraine appeared behind her.
“Put the gun down, Viv.”
Vivian laughed.
“You brought a child into a trap?”
“I brought the one person you never expected to see.”
“That’s not strategy. That’s insanity.”
“No,” Lorraine said. “It’s family.”
Ruiz’s voice crackled in Rachel’s ear.
“Rachel, move left. Slowly.”
Rachel shifted.
Vivian noticed.
“Take out the earpiece.”
Rachel obeyed.
“Kick it away.”
She did.
Madison stared at Vivian.
“Did you make Daddy dead?”
Vivian’s face changed. “Things went wrong.”
“You lied.”
“Yes.”
“Grown-ups shouldn’t lie about dead.”
Vivian’s jaw tightened. “Enough.”
She stepped toward Rachel.
Madison moved first.
She threw Thomas’s ring across the chapel.
It hit the stone floor and rolled beneath a pew.
Vivian glanced toward the sound.
Rachel lunged.
The gun fired.
Glass shattered behind the altar.
Lorraine grabbed Madison and dropped to the floor.
Rachel slammed into Vivian, knocking the weapon away.
They fell between the pews.
Vivian clawed at Rachel’s face.
“You stupid woman!”
Rachel hit her once.
Hard.
“For my husband.”
Again.
“For my daughter.”
Ruiz burst through the crypt door with officers behind her.
“Hands where I can see them!”
Vivian stopped fighting.
For the first time, she looked afraid.
Then a second gunshot came from the choir loft.
One of the hidden officers dropped.
Ruiz spun.
A man ran toward the rear stairs.
Ben Hall.
He had never been arrested.
May you like
He had been waiting inside the chapel the entire time.
And he was heading straight for Madison.
