Chapter 18
Caroline dropped the match.
Bear kicked the gasoline can aside.
Flames raced across the wooden floor but missed Jacob.
Emily and Jo smothered them with heavy curtains.
Caroline ran down the tower stairs.
I followed.
She reached Richard’s empty grave before I caught her.
“Why did your family take my baby?”
Caroline turned.
“Because your father owed mine money.”
“Bear was payment?”
“He was leverage.”
The cruelty of her answer stole my breath.
Caroline’s father placed Bear with the Walkers because they worked for him.
He always knew where Bear was.
Richard later inherited that information.
“Everything was business,” Caroline said.
“Not to us.”
She pulled a small pistol from her purse.
Before she could aim it, Jacob struck her arm with his chain.
The weapon fell into the grave.
Federal agents arrived minutes later.
Caroline was arrested without release.
Jacob handed us his notebook.
“The boat accident wasn’t fake,” he said. “A man really died.”
Richard had invited his accountant, Peter Shaw, onto the boat.
Peter resembled him from a distance.
Richard caused the explosion and left Peter to die.
Daniel altered the dental records.
Peter’s widow had spent five years believing her husband abandoned her.
She was the final witness.
Jacob knew where she lived.
We drove to her home before dawn.
The front door stood open.
Inside, furniture had been overturned.
A message was painted across the wall.
ONE FAMILY MUST DISAPPEAR.
A sound came from the basement.
We found Peter’s widow alive but injured.
She opened her hand.
Inside was Richard’s wedding ring.
May you like
“He was here,” she whispered.
“And he said Margaret is next.”
