Chapter 6
The bullet hit the metal doorframe above my head.
Helen shoved me behind a stack of boxes.
Margaret dropped to the floor.
Another shot rang out.
Then headlights flooded the unit.
Not police.
A white SUV blocked the entrance.
A man in a dark jacket moved toward us with a gun.
Helen fired once.
He ducked.
“Stay down,” she snapped.
I had never felt so useless in my life.
I had money.
Lawyers.
A mansion.
A name.
None of it mattered when someone was shooting into a storage unit because my dead wife hid the truth better than they expected.
Helen crawled toward the side wall and kicked over a metal shelf.
The crash covered her movement.
The gunman fired again.
Then sirens sounded in the distance.
The man cursed and ran.
Helen chased him out.
By the time I reached the door, the SUV was peeling away.
But not before I saw the driver.
Vanessa.
Her face turned toward me for half a second.
Then she vanished into the night.
I stood there, shaking.
She had not just been jealous.
She had not just been cruel.
She had come to finish what she started.
Detective Ramirez arrived with backup.
Helen gave her statement.
Margaret gave hers.
I gave mine.
Then I called home.
Mrs. Ellis answered on the first ring.
“Sophie is asleep. Safe.”
Only then did my knees nearly buckle.
Ramirez found shell casings.
Security cameras caught part of the plate.
Helen’s people traced the white SUV to a shell company connected to Westbridge Holdings.
By dawn, Vanessa’s bail was revoked.
She was gone.
My father held a press conference that morning.
I watched from my kitchen with Sophie asleep upstairs.
Richard Westbridge stood behind a podium in a navy suit.
“My family is enduring a painful domestic crisis,” he said. “My son is grieving, misled, and emotionally vulnerable.”
I stared at the screen.
He continued.
“Vanessa has been a loving presence in his daughter’s life. We ask for privacy.”
Privacy.
The favorite word of guilty rich men.
Margaret called.
“Do not respond publicly.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good. Helen found Evelyn Hart.”
My breath stopped.
“Where?”
“Protective custody. She’s terrified.”
“What does she know?”
Margaret was quiet for a second.
“She says Clara’s medication was altered.”
The room went cold.
“She has proof?”
“Yes.”
I sat down.
Sophie’s teddy bear sat on the table, dry now, stitched loosely along the back.
The bear had carried a key.
The key had carried Clara’s voice.
Clara’s voice had led us to Damon.
Damon had led us to Evelyn.
My wife had been dead for three years, and she was still fighting her way back to protect us.
“When can I talk to Evelyn?” I asked.
“Soon. But Adrian, there’s more.”
Of course there was.
“There was a second medication order.”
“For Clara?”
“No.”
I gripped the phone.
“For who?”
Margaret’s voice softened.
“For Sophie.”
I stopped breathing.
“The order was never completed,” she said quickly. “Clara found it before she died. She believed if anything happened to her, they might eventually target Sophie’s trust.”
I looked toward the ceiling.
My daughter sleeping above me.
My daughter pushed into a pool for a teddy bear.
My daughter still carrying the last evidence her mother hid.
My father had not only taken Clara.
He had circled my child.
That morning, I walked into Sophie’s room and sat beside her bed.
She opened sleepy eyes.
“Daddy?”
I brushed her hair back.
“Yeah, baby.”
“Is Mama Bear okay?”
I looked at the teddy bear under her arm.
“Yes.”
“Are we okay?”
I swallowed hard.
May you like
“We’re going to be.”
That was the first promise I made knowing I would burn down anything necessary to keep it.
