Chapter 6
Rain battered the windshield as Thomas drove toward the Sterling lake house.
Police vehicles followed at a distance without sirens.
Richard sat in the passenger seat gripping Sophie’s brass key.
He called his mother repeatedly.
She did not answer.
Then Sophie’s tablet connected through the family tracking system.
A video call appeared.
Richard answered.
His daughter’s frightened face filled the screen.
She was sitting in the back seat of a moving car.
“Daddy?”
“I’m here, sweetheart.”
A hand took the tablet from her.
Eleanor Sterling appeared.
Her silver hair was perfectly arranged.
Pearls rested against the collar of her cream blouse.
She looked as composed as if she were attending a luncheon.
“Richard, stop following us.”
“Put Sophie back on.”
“She is perfectly safe.”
“You abducted my daughter.”
“I removed her from a chaotic environment.”
“Bring her home.”
“You aren’t thinking clearly.”
“My fiancée abused her, someone shot at me, and you used an emergency authorization to take her without permission. I’m thinking very clearly.”
Eleanor’s expression tightened.
“Andrew has been filling your head with lies.”
“Catherine left a journal.”
For the first time, his mother’s composure slipped.
Only for a second.
But Richard saw it.
“Catherine was ill,” she said. “Her writing cannot be trusted.”
“She knew you would say that.”
“Listen to me. Vanessa made mistakes, but she can still help Sophie.”
“Vanessa is Catherine’s sister.”
Eleanor remained silent.
“You knew,” Richard said.
“I knew they shared a father.”
“You helped Vanessa enter my life.”
“I allowed Andrew to introduce you.”
“Why?”
“Because Sophie’s inheritance created complications.”
Richard’s voice turned cold.
“Complications for whom?”
“For all of us.”
“Where are you taking my daughter?”
“To a place where we can discuss this privately.”
“There will be no private discussion.”
“You don’t understand what is at stake.”
“My child is at stake.”
“Your company employs forty thousand people. Pension funds depend on Sterling stock. Hospitals depend on our technology. Catherine was prepared to destroy all of it because she misunderstood an experimental program.”
“Did you order her medication changed?”
Eleanor’s eyes hardened.
“She was warned to stop asking questions.”
Richard lost his breath.
It was not a denial.
“Did you kill my wife?”
Sophie cried somewhere beyond the camera.
“Daddy!”
Eleanor glanced away.
The tablet moved.
For a moment, Richard saw the driver in the front seat.
Vanessa.
She had somehow left police custody.
Richard took a screenshot before Eleanor ended the call.
“Vanessa is driving,” he told Thomas.
Thomas relayed the information to Bennett.
“How did she get released?”
“Probably bail,” Richard said.
But Bennett called seconds later with a worse answer.
Vanessa had never reached the station.
The patrol car transporting her had been struck at an intersection by a delivery truck.
During the confusion, a man wearing a paramedic uniform removed her from the vehicle.
The truck had been stolen.
The fake paramedic was believed to be the shooter from the research facility.
Richard looked at the road ahead.
“Can we intercept them?”
Thomas shook his head.
“They have an eight-minute lead.”
“Drive faster.”
“The roads are flooded.”
“Faster.”
They reached the private road to the lake house twenty-three minutes later.
Vanessa’s car stood abandoned beside the gate.
One rear door remained open.
Sophie’s pink sneaker lay in the mud.
Richard jumped from the vehicle before it fully stopped.
He picked up the shoe.
It was warm.
“They’re close.”
Bennett’s officers spread through the trees.
The lake house stood beyond a long gravel drive.
Its windows were dark.
The front door was unlocked.
Richard entered with Thomas and two officers.
“Sophie!”
His voice echoed through the silent rooms.
A child sobbed upstairs.
Richard ran toward the sound.
The crying came from a bedroom at the end of the hall.
He opened the door.
A tablet rested on the bed, playing an old recording of Sophie crying.
A trap.
Thomas shouted from downstairs.
“Movement outside!”
Richard rushed to the window.
A motorboat pulled away from the dock.
Eleanor sat in the rear.
Vanessa held Sophie against her chest.
A man steered the boat toward the far shore.
Richard recognized him from Sterling company events.
Dr. Samuel Grant.
Catherine’s oncologist.
The man who had signed her death certificate.
Richard ran downstairs and out to the dock.
A second boat was tied there.
Thomas started the engine while Bennett and another officer climbed aboard.
They sped across the gray water.
Rain struck Richard’s face.
Ahead, Sophie struggled in Vanessa’s arms.
Vanessa shouted at her.
Even across the water, Richard heard his daughter scream.
“Daddy!”
“I’m coming!” he shouted.
Grant increased speed.
Their boat crossed the wake, throwing Eleanor sideways.
Sophie broke free for half a second.
Vanessa grabbed the back of her coat.
Richard’s heart stopped as his daughter slipped near the edge.
“Don’t touch her!”
Vanessa looked back.
Her face held the same cold fury Richard had seen in the kitchen.
She hauled Sophie upright.
Then Eleanor struck Vanessa across the face.
Even from a distance, the gesture shocked Richard.
Eleanor pulled Sophie away and held the child close.
Vanessa screamed something Richard could not hear.
The two women began struggling.
Grant turned sharply.
The boat swerved.
Sophie tumbled to the deck.
Bennett raised a loudspeaker.
“Cut your engine and place your hands where we can see them!”
Grant ignored her.
The far shore approached.
A black SUV waited near an abandoned marina.
The shooter stood beside it.
He opened the rear door.
Thomas pushed their boat harder.
Grant reached the dock first.
Vanessa jumped out.
Eleanor tried to lift Sophie, but the little girl kicked and screamed.
The shooter moved toward them.
Richard’s boat was still fifty yards away.
Then Eleanor did something no one expected.
She shoved Sophie behind herself and pulled a small pistol from her handbag.
She aimed it at the shooter.
“Stay back.”
The man froze.
Vanessa stared at her.
“What are you doing?”
Eleanor’s voice carried over the rain.
“We agreed she would never be harmed.”
Vanessa laughed wildly.
“You lost the right to make rules.”
“She is my granddaughter.”
“She is my inheritance!”
Sophie crawled away from them.
Richard shouted her name.
She turned toward the water.
Vanessa saw her and lunged.
Eleanor fired into the wooden dock.
Vanessa stopped.
The shooter raised his weapon.
Bennett shouted.
Officers on Richard’s boat aimed at him.
For several terrible seconds, everyone remained motionless.
Then Dr. Grant grabbed Eleanor from behind.
The pistol fell into the lake.
Vanessa seized Sophie.
The shooter dragged Eleanor toward the SUV.
Richard’s boat struck the dock.
Thomas leaped out first.
Bennett followed with her weapon raised.
“Police! Drop the gun!”
The shooter fired.
Thomas shoved Richard behind a piling.
Officers returned fire.
The shooter collapsed beside the SUV, wounded in the shoulder.
Grant released Eleanor and ran.
Bennett pursued him.
Richard charged toward Vanessa.
She held Sophie near the dock’s edge.
“Stay back!”
Sophie was sobbing too hard to speak.
Richard stopped several feet away.
“Let her go.”
“You ruined everything.”
“No one has to get hurt.”
“I spent years waiting for what my father owed me.”
“Sophie owes you nothing.”
“Catherine took my family, my name, and my inheritance.”
“Catherine didn’t choose your father’s decisions.”
“She got everything!”
Vanessa’s grip tightened.
Sophie winced.
Richard forced himself to stay calm.
“You can hate Catherine. You can hate me. But Sophie is six years old.”
“She is the reason I get nothing.”
“No. You are.”
Vanessa flinched.
“You made every choice that brought you here.”
Eleanor rose behind her.
Blood ran from a small cut above her eyebrow.
“Vanessa,” she said, “release the child.”
Vanessa turned her head.
That moment was enough.
Sophie bit Vanessa’s hand.
Vanessa cried out.
Richard surged forward and caught his daughter as she ran.
Thomas stepped between them while an officer restrained Vanessa.
Richard dropped to his knees and held Sophie against his chest.
“I’ve got you.”
She wrapped herself around him.
“You came back.”
“I promised.”
“You really came back.”
“I will always come back.”
Behind them, Vanessa screamed as she was handcuffed.
Grant was captured near the tree line.
The shooter lay under armed guard awaiting an ambulance.
Eleanor sat on the wet dock.
She watched Richard holding Sophie.
Her face seemed to age twenty years in a minute.
Richard stood with his daughter in his arms.
“Did you kill Catherine?”
Eleanor looked at Sophie.
Then at her son.
“No.”
“Did you help cover it up?”
Her silence answered.
Richard felt something inside him close forever.
Eleanor whispered, “I thought I could control them.”
“You chose the family name over my wife.”
“I chose thousands of innocent employees.”
“You chose yourself.”
Police approached her.
She did not resist when they placed her in handcuffs.
As they led her away, she looked back at Sophie.
“I never wanted you hurt.”
Sophie buried her face in Richard’s neck.
May you like
Richard’s answer was quiet.
“But she was hurt.”
