Chapter 8
Cole drew his weapon. The other security men fanned out, covering the hallway.
“Stay back,” Cole said quietly.
He pushed the door open with the barrel of his gun.
The penthouse was dark. The only light came from the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. We stepped inside carefully, our footsteps silent on the rug.
The blood trail led from the front door, through the foyer, past the living room, and down the hallway toward Victoria’s study.
The study door was wide open.
Inside, we found Evan.
He was sitting on the floor behind Victoria’s massive mahogany desk, his back against the wall, a gun in his lap. There was blood on his shirt, on his hands, on the carpet around him. But he wasn’t hurt.
On the desk in front of him lay a man. Middle-aged. Bald. A neat hole in the center of his forehead. A silenced pistol lay a few feet away, still warm.
Evan looked up when we entered. His eyes were empty.
“He was here when I got home,” Evan said, his voice flat. “Waiting in the dark. He said he was The Cleaner. That Mom sent him. That he was supposed to destroy the study. Burn everything. And then kill me and Blake because we knew too much.”
He nodded at the body.
“I shot him,” he said. “Twice. In the chest. Missed both times. Third shot… third shot I got him in the head.”
He held up the gun.
“Mom kept it in her desk drawer. Said it was for home defense. I’ve never even held a gun before tonight.”
Blake rushed to his brother. “Evan! Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
Evan didn’t look at him. He was staring at me.
“You were right,” he said. “About everything. I went through her files after you left. The foundation. The money. Dad’s medical records—she doctored them. Faked the heart attack. The doctor who signed the death certificate? He was on her payroll for twenty years.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a USB drive.
“I found this in her safe,” he said. “The one hidden behind the painting. It’s everything. All the accounts. All the names. The dead man’s switch. It’s set to automatically send every file to every major news outlet in the country in….” He checked his watch. “Sixty-two hours. From the moment Mom was arrested.”
Rebecca stepped forward. “Can you stop it?”
Evan shook his head. “The encryption is military-grade. I’ve been trying for an hour. The only person who can abort the transfer is Victoria herself. With her personal password and biometric scan. And she’s in jail.”
I walked over to the desk. The Cleaner’s body was already starting to cool. On the floor beside him was a duffel bag full of gasoline and road flares. He really was going to burn the place to the ground.
“Evan,” I said. “We need to get into the system. Find out where the server is. If we can physically access it, maybe we can—”
“The server isn’t here,” a voice said from the doorway.
We all turned.
A woman was standing in the hallway. She was in her late fifties, with silver hair and sharp, intelligent eyes. She held up a badge.
“Special Agent Carter,” she said. “FBI. And before you ask—yes, I’m aware of the irony. Victoria is my sister-in-law. I’ve been building a case against her for five years.”
She stepped over the blood puddle and into the study.
“I’ve had this penthouse wired for sound for eighteen months,” she said. “I heard everything Evan just said. And he’s right. The server isn’t here. It’s at the Carter Foundation building. In the basement vault. Victoria had it installed three years ago. It’s completely autonomous. No internet connection except for the one that sends the files. If we don’t get to it in time, that switch flips, and half the state’s political establishment goes down in flames.”
She looked at me.
“Miss Moore,” she said. “I know you have every reason to hate this family. And I know you’ve spent years planning to take Victoria down. But if that switch goes off, it won’t just be corrupt politicians who get hurt. There are innocent people on those files too. Whistleblowers. Victims. Witnesses who were promised protection. Their names will be public. Their lives will be destroyed. Some of them will die.”
I thought about it.
I thought about all the years I’d spent wanting Victoria to suffer. Wanting the world to know exactly what she was. Wanting everyone who’d ever helped her to burn.
But I also thought about my mother. About what she would have said.
She wouldn’t have wanted innocent people to die. Not even for justice.
“What do you need from me?” I said.
Agent Carter smiled faintly.
“Victoria’s biometrics are on file at the jail,” she said. “We can get a copy of her fingerprints and a retinal scan—with a court order, which I already have. But we need her password. And she’ll never give it to us. Not in a million years.”
She looked at Evan.
“But she might give it to you,” she said. “You’re her son. Her favorite. She told you everything. If you go to her tomorrow morning, look her in the eye, and tell her the switch is going to kill you too—that the files have evidence that will send you to prison for life—she’ll give you the password. She’d rather destroy her own life’s work than let anything happen to her golden boy.”
Evan went pale.
“You want me to lie to her?” he said. “Manipulate her? After everything she’s done?”
“I want you to save lives,” Agent Carter said. “Innocent lives. The same way your father would have.”
That got him.
Evan looked at the photograph of his father on Victoria’s desk. The same man I’d spent fifteen years hating and loving in equal measure.
“Okay,” Evan said quietly. “I’ll do it.”
“Then we have a long night ahead of us,” Agent Carter said. “We need to prepare. We need to wire you. We need to rehearse exactly what you’re going to say. And Miss Moore—”
She turned to me.
“I need you there too,” she said. “Victoria will expect you to be the one pulling Evan’s strings. If you’re in the room, she’ll believe the lie completely. She’ll give up the password just to spite you.”
I nodded.
May you like
I’d come this far.
I wasn’t stopping now.
