Chapter 17 - THE LAST PERSON HIDING
Ortiz pulled camera footage from a gas station two blocks away.
A woman entered a car twenty minutes after the shooting.
Julia stared at the blurry image.
Diane.
Thomas said no immediately.
“She wouldn’t.”
Julia looked at him.
“You don’t know that.”
He looked angry.
“You don’t either.”
He was right.
Diane disappeared from the hospital before agents could question her again.
A search of her room found a note.
I’m ending this where it started.
Thomas recognized the handwriting.
“She’s going to St. Catherine’s.”
Julia, Ortiz, and federal agents reached it before dawn.
They found Diane in the records basement.
She was holding a can of gasoline.
Stacks of old files surrounded her.
“Diane,” Julia said.
Diane turned.
Her face was wet with tears.
“These records ruined lives.”
“They also prove what happened.”
“They prove what I did.”
“Yes.”
Diane’s hand tightened around the lighter.
“I took babies from mothers.”
“Then help return the truth to them.”
“I can’t undo it.”
“No.”
Julia stepped closer.
“But you can stop destroying evidence.”
Diane looked at Thomas behind the agents.
He had followed farther than Julia wanted.
“Thomas.”
He stared at her.
“You told me running away doesn’t erase what happened.”
Diane sobbed.
“I said that?”
“Yes.”
“Then listen to yourself.”
Her hand opened.
The lighter fell.
Agents rushed forward.
Diane surrendered.
But before they led her away, she looked at Julia.
“I wasn’t the shooter.”
Julia went still.
“Then who was?”
Diane whispered, “Ask Grant who his mother trusted more than her own children.”
Grant woke from surgery two hours later.
Ortiz asked him the question.
His answer was one name.
“Arthur Voss.”
Julia knew the name.
May you like
He had been the Mercer family attorney for thirty years.
And he was currently sitting in Julia’s living room with Emily.
