Chapter 8 - THE LEDGER
Margaret had kept the ledger hidden for seventeen months.
Not because she was loyal to Charles.
Because she was afraid of him.
“Elise gave it to me the night before the crash,” Margaret told Ortiz from an ambulance stretcher. “She said if anything happened, I had to get it to Adrian.”
“Why didn’t you?” Adrian asked.
Margaret looked ashamed.
“Charles found me first. He showed me photographs of my grandson walking to school.”
Adrian’s anger disappeared for one second.
Fear had built this prison brick by brick.
Margaret said she finally planned to turn the ledger over after the wedding, once Clara and Mia were supposed to be moved overseas.
“Victoria came here yesterday,” she said. “She knew Clara had run.”
“Did she take the ledger?”
“No. A man did.”
“Dane?”
Margaret nodded.
Police searched Dane’s apartment and found it stripped clean.
But Marcus discovered one useful thing: a toll-camera image of Dane’s SUV heading west toward a private airfield owned by Mercer Aviation.
Adrian wanted to go.
Ortiz blocked the door.
“You have two daughters who just got you back.”
“And a woman who spent eighteen months imprisoned because of my family.”
“Then don’t make them lose you again because you’re angry.”
He hated that she was right.
Before he could answer, his phone rang from an unknown number.
Victoria.
Her voice was calm.
“You embarrassed me in front of everyone.”
“You buried my daughter alive on paper.”
“You always were dramatic.”
“Where is the ledger?”
She laughed softly.
“Come to the airfield alone and I’ll tell you.”
“No.”
“Then ask Clara what happened to the woman who helped her escape.”
Adrian’s blood went cold.
Margaret was in the ambulance outside.
So Victoria meant someone else.
Clara had never said she escaped alone.
Adrian turned toward the house.
“Clara,” he called.
Her face changed before he finished the question.
May you like
“There was a boy,” she whispered.
“Victoria took him.”
