Chapter 12 - THE CALL FROM MARK
"Where are you?" Richard demanded.
"Released pending charging review," Mark said. "My lawyer moved fast."
"What do you want?"
"A deal. Drop the trust petition. I resign from the board. Claudia takes the fall for the snow incident. Everybody keeps what's left of the family."
"You stole from your son."
"I borrowed from a trust I managed."
"Nine million dollars."
"You have six billion. Stop pretending this is about money."
Richard's voice went flat. "It isn't."
Mark went quiet.
"If it were only money," Richard continued, "I'd probably make the same mistake I've made your whole life. I'd write a check."
"Then do it now."
"No."
The single word stunned him.
Mark's tone changed. "If you go to court, Noah hears everything Sarah wrote. You want that in his head?"
"You already put fear in his head. Sarah left him a way out."
Mark breathed hard. "You think he'll love you forever because you rescued him one night?"
Richard looked at the wooden airplane.
"I don't need him to owe me love."
Mark hung up.
Richard called Dana and Sheriff Lewis. Deputies were posted outside the lodge.
At 2:13 a.m., a motion sensor triggered near the service entrance.
A hooded man forced the door and ran toward the office carrying a laptop bag.
Elena and two deputies tackled him in the mudroom.
It was Claudia's brother, Evan Ross.
Inside the bag were two external drives and a can of gasoline.
He had not come to steal evidence.
May you like
He had come to burn it.
And under questioning, he said Mark sent him.
