Chapter 8
Eric’s funeral was three days later.
Small. Private. Only his parents, his brother, and a handful of old friends from high school showed up.
I didn’t go.
I couldn’t.
Standing in a church, crying over a man who’d tried to send me to prison, who’d sold secrets to our enemies, who’d cheated on me with my own sister? It felt like a lie. Like I’d be pretending the last ten years had been something they weren’t.
I spent the day at the shelter instead.
The women there didn’t care about my dead husband. They didn’t care about the news, or the lawsuits, or the seven million dollars my parents had stolen. They cared that I showed up. That I listened to their stories. That I helped them fill out job applications, find apartments, get their kids into school.
That was the thing no one ever told you about being strong.
You didn’t have to be strong all the time.
You just had to be strong for the people who needed you.
By the end of the day, the tight knot in my chest had loosened a little.
I was locking up the shelter when Jake showed up.
He was holding two paper bags of takeout—Chinese, my favorite—and a six-pack of beer.
“Figured you hadn’t eaten,” he said, smiling that quiet smile of his.
I let him in.
We sat at the old kitchen table in the back of the shelter, ate dumplings and fried rice, and drank beer out of the bottle. We didn’t talk about Eric. We didn’t talk about the warehouse, or the FBI, or the trial coming up. We talked about the shelter. About the company. About the lake house I was fighting to get back. About Jake’s mom, who lived in Minnesota and called him every Sunday to make sure he was eating enough.
It was nice.
Normal.
The first normal thing I’d felt in months.
Jake left at ten. He walked me to my car, hesitated for a second, then leaned in and kissed me. Soft. Gentle. Like he was scared I’d break.
I didn’t push him away.
I kissed him back.
When he pulled back, he was blushing.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t be,” I said. I smiled. A real smile. The first one in a long time. “Do it again sometime.”
He grinned.
“Count on it.”
He drove away.
I got in my car, leaned my head back against the seat, and closed my eyes.
For the first time since the party, I didn’t feel alone.
---
The next two weeks passed in a blur.
The DA closed the Dubai case. Eric was dead, so no point in prosecuting a corpse. Liam got ten years for embezzlement and conspiracy. No deal. No parole. He’d be in his fifties when he got out.
My parents were arrested at noon the day after Eric died, exactly like Sarah said they would be. They were booked, fingerprinted, and released on bail. They didn’t call me. They didn’t write. I didn’t expect them to. The trial was set for six months later. Sarah said we’d win. Easy.
The only loose end was Natalie.
She’d disappeared after Eric died. No one knew where she was. Not her lawyer. Not Mom. Not even Grant, who’d been looking for her nonstop. Her phone was off. Her credit cards hadn’t been used. Her social media was deleted. It was like she’d fallen off the face of the earth.
Sarah said she’d probably run to Mexico. Or Canada. Or somewhere with no extradition treaty. She was pregnant, she had a little cash, she’d lay low for a few years, then come back when everything blew over.
I tried not to worry about her.
I had a company to run. A shelter to run. A lake house to fix up. A new relationship with Jake to figure out. I didn’t have time to think about Natalie and her endless drama.
But I should have.
Because Natalie wasn’t in Mexico.
She wasn’t in Canada.
She was ten minutes from my house.
Living in my parents’ basement.
Waiting.
---
It was a Tuesday night.
Jake was working late at the office, going through the last of the embezzlement records. I was home alone, in the kitchen, making pasta, when the doorbell rang.
I checked the camera by the front door.
No one there.
Probably kids playing pranks. Or a delivery guy who’d gotten the wrong house.
I went back to stirring the sauce.
Five minutes later, the doorbell rang again.
I checked the camera.
Still no one.
I frowned, turned the stove off, and walked to the front door. I unlatched the deadbolt, pulled the door open, and stepped out onto the porch.
The street was empty. Quiet.
No kids. No cars. No people.
Then I looked down.
A brick was sitting on my welcome mat.
Taped to it was a piece of notebook paper.
I picked it up, unfolded it.
The handwriting was messy. Scrawled. Angry.
You killed him. You took everything. Now I’m going to take everything from you. Starting with the accountant.
My blood turned to ice.
Jake.
I pulled out my phone, called him.
It went straight to voicemail.
I called again.
Straight to voicemail.
I ran back inside, grabbed my keys, and called Grant.
He answered on the second ring.
“Grant. Jake’s in trouble. Natalie left a note. She’s going after him. I can’t reach him. He’s at the office.”
“I’m five minutes from the building,” Grant said. His voice was already tight, moving. “I’m on my way. Call 911. Now.”
I hung up, called 911, told the operator everything. Then I peeled out of the driveway, tires screeching, and raced toward the office.
I got there in eight minutes.
The parking lot was dark. Only one light was on in the whole building: my office, on the twelfth floor.
Grant was already there, leaning against his car, waiting for me. He had a gun in his hand.
“Police are three minutes out,” he said. “The front door’s locked. No one’s come in or out since I got here. She’s still in there. With him.”
We ran to the service entrance around the back. Grant had a key. He unlocked the door, and we slipped inside, quiet as mice.
We took the stairs. Fast. Quiet.
Twelve flights.
I was out of breath by the time we got to the top. My legs burned. My heart was hammering so hard I could hear it in my ears.
Grant held up a hand, motioned for me to stop.
He pressed his ear to the door leading into the hallway.
Listened.
Then he nodded, held up one finger.
One person talking.
Natalie.
He pushed the door open, slow.
The hallway was dark. Only the light from my office spilled out under the door.
We crept down the hall, silent.
When we got to my office door, we could hear her clearly.
She was crying. Screaming.
“You’re just like her, aren’t you?” she yelled. “All of you think you’re so much better than me! So perfect! So strong! Well, you’re not! You’re all going to pay! You’re all going to die!”
A male voice answered. Soft. Calm.
Jake.
“Natalie, no one wants to hurt you. Just put the knife down. Let me go. We can talk about this. Please.”
A knife.
I closed my eyes.
Grant looked at me, mouthed Stay here, then raised his gun, turned the doorknob, and kicked the door open.
“POLICE! DROP THE WEAPON!”
I ran in right behind him.
The scene in my office will be burned into my brain forever.
Jake was tied to my desk chair, his hands bound behind his back with duct tape. There was a cut on his forehead, blood running down his face.
Natalie was standing in front of him.
She was thinner. Pale. Her hair was greasy, pulled back in a messy ponytail. She was wearing an old sweatshirt of mine—one I’d lost months ago—and sweatpants.
In her right hand, she held a long kitchen knife.
Pressed right against Jake’s throat.
She looked up when we burst in. Her eyes were wild. Crazy.
“Clara,” she said. She smiled. A wide, insane smile. “You made it. I was starting to think you wouldn’t come.”
“Natalie,” I said. I held my hands up, slow. “Let him go. This is between you and me. He has nothing to do with this.”
“Nothing to do with it?” she shrieked. She pressed the knife harder into Jake’s throat. A thin line of blood appeared. “He’s your new boyfriend, isn’t he? The replacement for Eric? You think you can just replace everything you broke? You think you can just move on and be happy? After what you did to me?”
“I didn’t do anything to you, Natalie,” I said. I took a slow step forward. “You did this to yourself. All of it. The lies. The stealing. The affair. It was all you.”
“Liar!” she screamed. “You always did this! You always made me look like the bad guy! Mom was right! You’re a monster! You killed Eric! You put Dad in the hospital!”
Dad?
“What are you talking about?”
“Dad had a heart attack yesterday,” she said, crying now. “The stress. The arrest. He almost died. And you didn’t even call. You didn’t even care. You’re not my sister. You’re not even human.”
Sirens wailed outside, getting closer.
Red and blue lights flashed through the windows.
Natalie’s head snapped toward the sound. The knife wavered.
Grant moved.
Fast.
He lunged across the room, grabbed her wrist, twisted it hard.
The knife clattered to the floor.
Natalie screamed, kicked, fought, but Grant was too big, too strong. He had her on the floor in two seconds, cuffs on her wrists before she could take another breath.
I ran to Jake, knelt down in front of him, and started pulling the duct tape off his hands.
“Are you okay?” I whispered. My hands were shaking. “Oh my God, Jake, I’m so sorry. I’m so—”
He smiled, winced a little when the tape pulled the skin on his wrists.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Just a cut. I’ve had worse playing hockey. Really.”
I pulled him into a hug, held him tight, and for the first time in four months, I cried.
Hard.
Sobbing into his shoulder, shaking, letting all the fear and the anger and the pain of the last few months pour out of me all at once.
Jake held me, rubbed my back, and whispered over and over that it was okay. That I was safe. That we were both safe.
The police ran in a second later. Paramedics right behind them.
They took Natalie out first, still screaming, still fighting, yelling that I’d set her up, that she was the victim, that none of this was her fault.
The paramedics looked at Jake’s cut, put a few stitches in it, and said he’d be fine. Just a scar. A story to tell the grandkids.
Grant walked over to me, handed me a cup of coffee.
“Your dad’s in the hospital,” he said, quiet. “Heart attack yesterday. Mild. He’s going to be okay. Your mom called the house this morning, looking for you. She wants to talk.”
I nodded, sipped the coffee.
“Okay.”
I looked over at Jake, who was laughing at something one of the paramedics had said. The cut on his forehead was stitched up. He looked tired, but he was okay.
He was alive.
We were both alive.
And Natalie was finally going away.
For a long time.
May you like
I turned back to Grant.
“Tomorrow,” I said. “I’m going to the hospital to see Dad. And Mom. It’s time to end this. All of it.”
