Chapter 7
My parents’ car had gone over a guardrail near Bear Mountain twenty years earlier.
I had not visited the site since their memorial.
Adrian knew that.
He wanted every wound open when I arrived.
Detective Reed arranged a tactical response, but the mountain roads and storm slowed everyone.
Marco drove while I spoke to Eleanor through Adrian’s phone.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m sorry, Damian.”
“Tell me where he is.”
“He can hear me.”
Adrian laughed.
“She still thinks confession will save her.”
The call ended.
We found Eleanor’s abandoned car near an old maintenance road.
Fresh tire tracks led through the mud toward a hunting cabin once owned by my grandfather.
Adrian had chosen ground belonging to our family.
Inside the cabin, Eleanor sat tied to a chair.
Adrian stood behind her with his gun.
A metal case rested on the table.
“I want the drive,” he said.
“The police have it.”
“I want every copy.”
“That isn’t possible.”
“Then Aunt Eleanor dies knowing she sacrificed everyone for nothing.”
Eleanor’s face was bruised.
“Don’t give him anything.”
Adrian struck the side of her head.
I moved forward.
“Touch her again, and you lose your only leverage.”
He pointed the gun at me.
“My leverage is your shame.”
He opened the metal case.
Inside were my mother’s original will, medical trial records, photographs of damaged vehicles, and an old cassette recorder.
“I found these in the mausoleum,” Adrian said. “Sofia hid enough evidence to destroy every Mercer name.”
“Then release it.”
“You think shareholders will separate you from what your father did?”
“I don’t care.”
He blinked.
The answer unsettled him.
“You care about the company more than anything.”
“I did.”
Eleanor looked at me through tears.
“And now?”
“Now I care about my daughter.”
Adrian’s face twisted.
“Rosie gets everything because Sofia slept with you once?”
“This was never about inheritance for her.”
“It is for me!”
His shout shook the cabin.
“I worked beside you for fifteen years. I fixed your mistakes. I smiled while people called you brilliant because your last name came with the right father.”
“We have the same last name.”
“Not the same blood in their eyes.”
I understood then.
Adrian had not joined Richard only for money.
He wanted to take my life apart and prove he deserved it more.
“Did you help kill my parents?”
He stared at Eleanor.
“My mother did.”
Eleanor sobbed.
“Tell him,” Adrian ordered.
She shook her head.
“Tell me,” I said.
Eleanor’s shoulders collapsed.
“Richard came to me the night before the crash. He said your mother planned to report the trials. He warned that Mercer Holdings would be destroyed and that Adrian and I would lose everything.”
“What did you do?”
“I gave him their travel route.”
My chest became hollow.
“That’s all?”
“I told him which car they would use.”
“You knew he planned to hurt them.”
“I suspected.”
“Did you tamper with the car?”
“No. Richard paid a mechanic.”
Adrian placed the cassette recorder on the table.
“Sofia found the mechanic.”
He pressed play.
An elderly man confessed that Richard had ordered him to cut partway through a brake line.
He also said Eleanor had delivered the vehicle.
I stared at the woman who had tucked me into bed after my parents’ funeral.
“You drove it to him?”
“I told myself it was for an inspection.”
“You knew.”
“I was afraid.”
“My mother trusted you.”
“I know.”
“My father was your brother.”
“I know.”
Her voice broke.
“I have lived with it every day.”
Adrian gripped her chair.
“She gave you everything afterward. She raised you. She made sure the company stayed yours.”
“That doesn’t erase what she did.”
“No,” Eleanor whispered. “It doesn’t.”
Sirens sounded faintly below the ridge.
Adrian heard them.
“You brought police.”
“They tracked you.”
He grabbed the metal case and dragged Eleanor toward the back door.
Marco moved from the shadows outside.
Adrian fired through the window.
Marco dropped behind a fallen log.
I struck Adrian before he could fire again.
We crashed into the table.
The gun slid across the floor.
Eleanor tipped sideways with the chair.
Adrian punched me in the throat, then reached for the weapon.
I caught his ankle.
He kicked my face.
The gun was inches from his hand when Eleanor threw herself sideways, knocking it beneath the stove.
Adrian turned on her.
“You chose him again.”
“I’m choosing what is right,” she cried.
“You’re twenty years late.”
“So are you.”
He pulled a knife from his belt.
Marco entered through the broken window and ordered him to drop it.
Adrian pressed the blade against Eleanor’s throat.
“Put the gun down.”
Marco obeyed.
Adrian dragged Eleanor onto the porch.
Rain struck us as we followed.
The ground ended at a steep ravine beyond the cabin.
“Let her go,” I said.
“You’ll let me leave with the case.”
“Yes.”
“Damian,” Eleanor whispered, “don’t.”
Adrian shoved her toward me and ran.
I caught her before she fell.
Marco pursued him.
A gunshot echoed through the trees.
Then another.
I helped Eleanor back into the cabin as officers arrived from the road.
Minutes passed.
Reed returned with rain streaming from her coat.
“Adrian fell down the embankment. He’s alive, but injured. He’s in custody.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
I felt no victory.
Only exhaustion.
Reed secured the metal case and cassette.
“The recording supports murder charges against Richard,” she said.
“And Eleanor?”
Reed looked at my aunt.
“Conspiracy and obstruction are possibilities.”
Eleanor nodded.
“I’ll confess to everything.”
I could not forgive her.
Not then.
But I untied her hands.
As paramedics examined us, Reed’s phone rang.
She listened, then turned toward me.
“Vivienne survived surgery.”
“Has she agreed to cooperate?”
“Yes. She says Richard kept records of every payment in a private vault.”
“Where?”
“At Vale Medical headquarters.”
Reed’s expression remained grim.
“There’s another problem. Richard was released under monitoring while charges were reviewed.”
I already knew what came next.
“He ran.”
“He removed the tracker and disappeared.”
My phone vibrated with an alert from the estate’s security system.
Someone had used Vivienne’s old access code.
A nursery camera activated on my screen.
Richard stood inside Rosie’s empty bedroom.
He stared into the lens, holding Sofia’s ring.
May you like
Then he smiled.
“You took my daughter,” he said. “Now I’m going to take everything Sofia left behind.”
