PART 4 — THE MAN ABOVE DIANE
The name on Robert’s letter was written in thick black ink.
Everett Sloan.
I had seen that name on television hundreds of times.
Chief Everett Sloan standing behind microphones after shootings, fires, missing-child cases, and police funerals.
Everett Sloan shaking hands with mayors.
Everett Sloan accepting awards for public service.
Everett Sloan promising grieving families that no one was above the law.
Twenty-five years earlier, he had stood beside Robert’s grave wearing a dark uniform and a silver captain’s badge.
He held my hands between his and said, “We will find your son, Mrs. Bennett. I give you my word.”
Now Robert’s letter claimed Sloan had ordered my family destroyed.
The footsteps from the alley grew louder.
“Drive,” I told Diane.
She pressed the accelerator.
The silver sedan shot away from the curb just as two men emerged from behind Nora’s house.
One raised his arm.
A gun flashed in his hand.
The rear window exploded.
Lily screamed and dropped to the floor.
Glass showered over my shoulders.
Diane swerved across two lanes, narrowly missing a delivery truck.
Another shot struck the trunk.
“Keep your heads down!” she shouted.
I pulled Lily against me.
The men rushed toward a black SUV parked near the alley.
Within seconds, it was behind us.
Diane turned sharply onto a residential street.
The tires screamed.
“Who are they?” Lily asked.
“Sloan’s cleanup team.”
“You said Nora called them.”
“I said Nora reported to me.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Nora called me when Margaret arrived. Sloan has been intercepting my communications.”
I stared at Diane.
“You knew Nora was watching me?”
“She wasn’t watching you.”
“Then what was she doing?”
“Waiting for Andrew.”
The words hurt more than they should have.
“Nora knew he was alive?”
“She suspected.”
“For how long?”
“Since 2003.”
The year Andrew had stood across the street from my house.
The year Nora had taken the photograph of Robert arguing with Diane.
The year my son had almost come home.
“You let me believe she knew nothing.”
“I did not expect to see you today.”
“That is becoming everyone’s favorite excuse.”
The SUV appeared in the shattered rear window.
Diane accelerated.
“You can hate me after we survive.”
“I have hated the wrong person for 25 years. I am trying to be more careful now.”
For the first time, Diane looked wounded.
The expression was so similar to my own that I had to turn away.
She drove toward the freeway, then suddenly cut through a gas station and exited onto a service road.
The SUV followed.
“They’re gaining,” Lily said.
“I know.”
Diane reached beneath her seat and pulled out a handgun.
She held it toward me.
“Do you know how to use this?”
“No.”
“Then today is a poor day to learn.”
She gave it to Lily instead.
My granddaughter stared at the weapon.
“My father hated guns.”
“So did mine,” Diane said.
“Our father,” I corrected.
Diane’s jaw tightened.
“Our father never knew me.”
“He thought you died.”
“He stopped looking.”
“He was told you were dead.”
“He could have questioned it.”
“He was grieving.”
“So was I.”
The bitterness in her voice did not sound 67 years old.
It sounded like a child who had spent a lifetime waiting beside a window.
Lily lowered the gun.
“Argue later.”
The SUV moved beside us.
Its passenger window opened.
“Down!” Diane shouted.
Three gunshots struck the side of the sedan.
Diane slammed the brakes.
The SUV flew past us.
She turned into a narrow alley, accelerated between two buildings, and crashed through a wooden barrier at the far end.
The sedan landed hard in an empty parking lot.
Something beneath the car scraped against the pavement.
Smoke rose from the hood.
Diane did not stop.
She crossed the lot, drove through a loading area, and entered a parking garage from the rear.
We spiraled upward through six levels.
At the top, she abandoned the car between two concrete pillars.
“Take only what you can carry,” she said.
Lily grabbed the backpack.
I held Robert’s letter.
Diane wiped the steering wheel, door handles, and gearshift.
Then she placed the handgun inside her coat.
“We change cars.”
“Whose car?” I asked.
“Hers.”
She pointed toward an old station wagon parked near the stairwell.
Nora Bell stood beside it.
A bandage covered her forehead.
“Nora!”
I ran toward her.
She caught me in both arms.
“I thought they killed you.”
“They tried.”
“You screamed.”
“One of them broke my wrist.”
Her left arm hung stiffly at her side.
“I hit him with the bat.”
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
“Of course you did.”
Nora looked at Lily.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
Then Nora turned toward Diane.
Her expression hardened.
“You said Sloan would not find the house.”
“I was wrong.”
“You have been wrong for 25 years.”
“I know.”
Nora tossed her a set of keys.
“Then stop standing there and get us somewhere safe.”
We drove east in silence.
Diane used side streets, parking structures, and crowded intersections to make sure we were not followed.
Eventually, the city thinned behind us.
Apartment buildings became warehouses.
Warehouses became dry hills and long stretches of highway.
The safe house was an abandoned veterinary clinic outside El Cajon.
Its windows had been covered from inside. We entered through a rear door hidden behind an overgrown hedge.
The waiting room still contained faded posters of dogs and cats.
Dust covered the reception desk.
Diane locked four separate bolts behind us.
“How long have you had this place?” Lily asked.
“Since 2014.”
“The year Colin signed his confession,” I said.
Diane looked at me.
“Yes.”
She led us into an examination room.
A folding table had been placed in the center. On it sat bottled water, medical supplies, two laptops, and several sealed evidence containers.
Photographs covered one wall.
Colin.
Andrew.
Robert.
Nora.
Sloan.
Me.
I moved closer.
Some photographs had been taken from across streets.
Some through restaurant windows.
One showed me carrying groceries into my apartment less than a month earlier.
“You were watching me.”
Diane did not deny it.
“For how long?”
“Since Robert died.”
I turned toward her.
“You watched me lose the restaurant?”
“Yes.”
“You watched me work three jobs?”
“Yes.”
“You watched me bury my parents?”
“Yes.”
“And you never came to me?”
Her face tightened.
“I thought staying away protected you.”
“Everyone keeps protecting me by leaving me alone.”
Nora sat heavily in a chair.
“She has a right to know everything now.”
Diane removed her coat.
Blood stained the sleeve near her shoulder.
One of the bullets had grazed her.
Lily stepped toward her automatically.
“You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I’ve had worse.”
Lily opened the medical supplies.
“Sit down.”
Diane obeyed.
As Lily cleaned the wound, I stared at my sister.
My twin.
A woman who had my face, my blood, and none of my memories.
“Tell me about Sloan,” I said.
Diane looked toward Nora.
Nora nodded.
“No more pieces,” I said. “No more deciding which truth I can survive.”
Diane took a slow breath.
“Everett Sloan found me when I was 19.”
“I thought you found our family at 31.”
“I found you at 31.”
“Sloan found me first.”
She explained that her adoptive parents had died when she was young. Vivian Hart died from cancer when Diane was 14. Harold Hart died three years later.
After his death, Diane discovered irregular adoption documents in a locked desk.
There was no official court order.
No legitimate agency record.
Only a payment receipt from St. Matthew’s Hospital and the name of an attorney who had died decades earlier.
“I went to the police,” Diane said. “Sloan was a young detective assigned to financial crimes.”
“He told me he would investigate.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“But he did not tell me what he found.”
“What did he find?”
“That I had been sold.”
The words settled heavily over the room.
“St. Matthew’s had arranged private adoptions for wealthy couples who could not qualify legally. Nurses told mothers their babies had died. Records were altered. Death certificates were created for children who were still alive.”
Nora closed her eyes.
“How many?”
“At least 17.”
“And Sloan covered it up?”
“He used it.”
Diane’s voice hardened.
“He found surviving parents, adoptive families, doctors, and administrators. Then he blackmailed them.”
“For money?”
“For influence.”
Sloan protected careers.
Controlled judges.
Forced businessmen to finance political campaigns.
Made police officers destroy evidence.
By the time Diane joined the police department, Sloan had become her mentor.
“He helped you become a detective,” I said.
“He made sure I became one.”
“And in return?”
“I worked for him.”
Lily stopped wrapping the bandage.
“What kind of work?”
“At first, I changed reports. Lost evidence. Redirected investigations.”
“At first?” I asked.
Diane met my eyes.
“Later, I helped him build routes for stolen pharmaceuticals.”
Westline Delivery had been one of those routes.
Sloan’s men stole legitimate medication and medical equipment from hospitals, warehouses, and emergency relief shipments.
Some products were sold overseas.
Others were replaced with counterfeits and sent back into clinics.
“People could have died,” Lily said.
“They did.”
My granddaughter stepped away from Diane.
“Did my father know?”
“Not until Robert discovered it.”
“Why did Robert investigate Colin?”
“Because Colin approached him for money.”
That surprised me.
“When?”
“Six months before the safe was emptied.”
Colin had gone to Robert privately and asked for an investment in Westline.
Robert reviewed the accounts.
He found invoices that did not match delivery records.
Hospital equipment listed as restaurant machinery.
Medications disguised as packaged food.
“He confronted Colin,” Diane said.
“Colin told Sloan.”
“And Sloan ordered Robert watched.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t they kill him immediately?”
“They needed to know what he had copied.”
I thought of the documents Robert hid in the safe.
“Did Robert know you were involved?”
“Eventually.”
“How?”
“I told him.”
Nora stared at her.
“You warned Robert?”
Diane nodded.
“Why?”
Her eyes moved toward me.
“Because of Margaret.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I had spent my life believing you stole everything that should have been mine.”
“My mother?”
“Our mother.”
“My childhood?”
“Our childhood.”
“My husband?”
Diane looked away.
“I watched you for months before I approached Robert.”
“You dressed like me.”
“Yes.”
“You came to my restaurant.”
“Yes.”
“You let him believe you were me.”
“At first.”
My hand moved before I could stop it.
The slap echoed through the room.
Diane’s face turned sharply.
No one spoke.
She touched her cheek.
“I deserved that.”
“You deserved far worse.”
“Yes.”
“Did Robert know who you were when he slept with you?”
Diane’s eyes filled with tears.
“Not when he kissed me.”
“And afterward?”
“Yes.”
The answer cut through me.
“He knew?”
“He realized when he saw the scar.”
“Then he continued?”
“No.”
“But your letter said—”
“My letter was written to hurt him.”
“You told him he knew.”
“I wanted him to believe the guilt belonged equally to him.”
“Did it?”
Diane took several seconds to answer.
“He was drunk. Grieving. Confused.”
“Grieving what?”
“Our anniversary.”
I stared at her.
Diane explained that she had studied me for months.
She knew my clothes.
My routines.
The perfume Robert bought me.
She knew I had planned to meet him at a hotel restaurant on our anniversary after closing Bennett’s Table.
Then she called me and pretended to be a supplier with an emergency.
While I remained at the restaurant, Diane went to the hotel dressed as me.
“Robert had already been drinking,” she said. “The dining room was dark.”
“You stole my anniversary.”
“Yes.”
“You stole my husband.”
“For less than ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes can destroy a marriage.”
“I know.”
“No. You watched mine continue for another ten years.”
Diane’s voice broke.
“I hated you before I knew you.”
“And after?”
“I tried to.”
I stepped closer.
“Did you love Robert?”
A tear slid down her cheek.
“Yes.”
I slapped her again.
This time, she did not turn away.
“I loved him because he loved you,” she whispered. “I thought if he could look at me the way he looked at you, then perhaps I could understand why you deserved the life I was denied.”
“You could have come to me.”
“I was ashamed.”
“So you chose Sloan instead.”
“He already owned me.”
“No one owns you for 25 years unless you keep obeying.”
Diane lowered her head.
“I know.”
The room fell silent.
Lily stood near the wall with her arms folded across her chest.
She had lost her father six weeks earlier.
Now she was learning that every adult in his life had failed him.
Robert had hidden the truth.
Diane had protected criminals.
Colin had betrayed him.
I had believed the worst without allowing doubt.
Andrew had answered all of that secrecy with more secrecy.
Fear had passed through our family like an inheritance.
Nora broke the silence.
“Tell her what happened the morning Robert died.”
Diane closed her eyes.
“Sloan learned that Robert had placed copies of the shipment records in the restaurant safe.”
“He ordered Colin to make Andrew empty it.”
“And you?”
“I was supposed to make sure Robert discovered the theft quickly.”
“Why?”
“Sloan wanted Robert frightened.”
“Frightened into doing what?”
“Returning the copies.”
“But the copies were in the safe.”
“Sloan believed Robert had hidden another set.”
“Had he?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I didn’t know then.”
I held up Robert’s letter.
“You called him pretending to be me.”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
Diane’s voice became almost inaudible.
“I told him Andrew had confessed.”
My chest tightened.
“I told him Andrew planned to take the money and disappear.”
“You knew Robert’s heart was weak.”
“Yes.”
“You knew the shock could kill him.”
“Yes.”
“Did Sloan order you to kill him?”
“No.”
“Did you hope he would die?”
Diane looked at me.
“No.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“Because Sloan said he would kill you if I refused.”
I laughed without humor.
“And I am supposed to thank you?”
“No.”
“You saved my life by destroying it.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
Diane fell silent.
Lily approached the wall of photographs.
One showed Andrew entering a small auto shop.
Another showed him with Elena and a 4-year-old Lily outside a grocery store.
“Who took these?” she asked.
“I did,” Diane said.
“You found us.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“2009.”
“I was five.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you arrest Dad?”
“I told Sloan Andrew had died.”
Lily turned.
“You protected him?”
“For a while.”
“What changed?”
“Colin found him in 2011.”
“Why didn’t Colin expose him?”
“Andrew had evidence against him.”
“The confession?”
“Not yet. Andrew had copies of bank transfers and shipping records.”
“So they reached an agreement.”
“Andrew stayed silent. Colin stayed away from you.”
“But Colin signed the confession in 2014.”
“He was dying.”
Lily frowned.
“He died in 2022.”
“He was diagnosed with a heart condition in 2014. He believed he had months.”
Diane stood and approached the evidence table.
“When he survived, he regretted confessing.”
“Did he try to take it back?”
“He tried to kill Andrew.”
Lily’s face went pale.
Diane opened an evidence container.
Inside was a damaged mobile phone.
“This belonged to your mother.”
“Elena?”
“Yes.”
“She died in a car accident.”
“No.”
Lily took a step backward.
“My father said a drunk driver crossed the center line.”
“That is what Andrew believed for years.”
“What are you saying?”
Diane connected the damaged phone to the laptop.
A photograph appeared on the screen.
Elena sat behind the wheel of a car. Her face was bruised. Blood covered her collar.
The photograph had been taken shortly before she died.
“She sent this to Andrew,” Diane said. “But Sloan intercepted it.”
Lily’s hands began to tremble.
“Who hurt her?”
“Colin.”
“No.”
“He forced her car off the road.”
“Why?”
“Elena had discovered that Sloan was still transporting counterfeit medication through clinics near Phoenix.”
Lily stared at the image.
“She was a nurse.”
“Yes.”
“She found patients getting sick.”
“Yes.”
“She told Dad she was working night shifts.”
“She was gathering proof.”
Lily looked at me.
Her eyes were Andrew’s.
But the grief in them belonged entirely to her.
“My father thought her death was an accident.”
“Until 2023,” Diane said.
“What happened in 2023?”
“I gave him the phone.”
Lily lunged toward her.
“You had it for 12 years?”
Diane did not move.
“I needed it as leverage against Sloan.”
“That was my mother!”
“I know.”
Lily struck her.
The force knocked Diane against the table.
“You let my father grieve a lie!”
“Yes.”
“You let me believe she died because someone drank too much!”
“Yes.”
“You are no better than Sloan.”
Diane wiped blood from her lip.
“No.”
That answer stopped Lily.
Diane did not defend herself.
She did not claim good intentions.
She simply stood beneath the weight of what she had done.
I understood then that my sister had not brought us to the safe house because she wanted forgiveness.
She had brought us because she had finally run out of places to hide.
Nora opened the yellow envelope.
“Robert said there was a name above Diane. Is Sloan the highest name?”
“No,” Diane said.
All three of us looked at her.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Sloan ordered the operation in San Diego.”
“But?”
“He answers to someone else.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
“Sloan never used the person’s name.”
“Then how do you know someone exists?”
“Because every year, money left Sloan’s accounts and went to the same numbered trust.”
She opened a file on the second laptop.
A list of transfers appeared.
Millions of dollars over more than two decades.
The recipient was identified only as Beneficiary 17.
“Robert’s copied ledger contained the real name,” Diane said.
“Where is the ledger?”
“He hid it before entering the office.”
“You said Sloan believed it was in the safe.”
“He was wrong.”
“Where did Robert hide it?”
Diane looked at me.
“In something he knew you would never throw away.”
The answer came immediately.
“The recipe box.”
Diane nodded.
The wooden box we had left inside Unit 318.
The box containing Robert’s handwritten recipes.
The box Sloan’s men now possessed.
My stomach tightened.
“We have to go back.”
“The unit will be empty,” Nora said.
Diane checked her watch.
“Sloan will not take the box to police headquarters.”
“How do you know?”
“Because tonight is his retirement gala.”
The event was being held at the Grand Monarch Hotel.
Nearly 500 guests were expected.
Police commanders.
Judges.
Business owners.
Reporters.
The mayor.
Sloan planned to announce a charitable foundation in his name.
“He will keep the ledger close until he can destroy it,” Diane said.
“And then?”
“He leaves the country tomorrow morning.”
Lily looked at the clock.
“We have five hours.”
Nora lifted her injured arm.
“I’m not attending a gala dressed like this.”
“We are not attending,” Diane said. “We are breaking into Sloan’s private suite.”
I stared at her.
“And exposing him how?”
Diane removed a memory card from her pocket.
“Colin’s full recording is on this.”
“The cassette ended.”
“The cassette was edited.”
I felt a new wave of anger.
“You let us believe that was all of it.”
“I needed to know whether Margaret would come with me willingly.”
“You could have told me.”
“You would not have believed me.”
“You never gave me the choice.”
Diane inserted the card.
Colin’s voice played through the laptop.
Robert did not collapse because he saw an empty safe.
Andrew asked, How do you know?
Because Robert knew the money was gone before he entered the office.
The recording continued beyond the point where the cassette had ended.
Who called him? Andrew asked.
Diane.
Why?
Because Sloan told her to.
Did Sloan want my father dead?
A long silence followed.
Then Colin answered.
He said a dead restaurant owner could not testify.
Lily covered her mouth.
My legs weakened.
Robert’s death had not been an accident.
Sloan knew his heart could fail.
He used Diane’s voice, my face, and Andrew’s betrayal as weapons.
Andrew spoke again.
Who is Beneficiary 17?
Colin began to cry.
I cannot say.
Why not?
Because Sloan is afraid of him.
Who is he?
You already met him.
When?
At your father’s funeral.
The recording ended.
More than one powerful man had stood beside me at Robert’s grave.
The mayor.
The district attorney.
Judges.
Police commanders.
Business owners.
Any one of them could have been Beneficiary 17.
Diane closed the laptop.
“The ledger contains the name.”
“And if we find it?” I asked.
“We release everything.”
“To whom?”
“Every newspaper, federal agency, and television station I have prepared.”
“Prepared when?”
“Over the last 12 years.”
Nora shook her head.
“You had evidence for 12 years and did nothing.”
“I never had the ledger.”
“You had enough to start.”
“I had enough to disappear into prison while Sloan remained protected.”
Diane looked at me.
“Margaret is the missing witness.”
“Me?”
“Sloan’s entire defense depends on claiming Robert acted alone, Andrew stole voluntarily, Colin lied, and I became obsessed with my biological family.”
“That last part is true.”
“Yes.”
She did not look away.
“But you can prove the woman at the telephone was not you.”
“The photograph proves it.”
“They will call it altered.”
“The DNA report?”
“They will call it contaminated.”
“What can I prove?”
“That Diane Foster confessed to impersonating you.”
I understood.
Diane did not plan to escape.
She planned to testify.
“You’ll go to prison.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you are willing to do that now?”
“I should have done it 25 years ago.”
She handed me a small recorder.
“I have already confessed to evidence tampering, conspiracy, obstruction, impersonation, blackmail, and my role in Robert’s death.”
My fingers closed around it.
“Why give it to me?”
“Because I do not trust myself to survive tonight.”
Before I could answer, an alarm sounded from the second laptop.
A red light flashed.
Diane rushed toward it.
“What is that?” Lily asked.
“Motion sensor.”
“Outside?”
“No.”
Diane opened a tracking program.
A map appeared.
One signal pulsed at the safe house.
Another moved west along the highway.
She stared at the screen.
“That’s impossible.”
“What?”
“The tracker from the storage key.”
I remembered the small silver key stamped with 318.
“Where is it?”
“In Lily’s backpack.”
Lily placed the backpack on the table and emptied it.
Documents.
The cashier’s check.
The flash drive.
The key.
Diane picked it up.
The pulsing signal on the map continued moving west.
“This key is not transmitting,” she said.
“Then what is?”
Diane enlarged the map.
The second tracker was traveling toward San Diego.
Toward the Grand Monarch Hotel.
Someone had taken the original tracking device from the storage unit.
“Who?” Nora asked.
Diane’s expression changed.
“Sloan wants us to believe the evidence is going to the gala.”
“You said he would keep the ledger close.”
“I was wrong.”
The lights went out.
The room became black.
A second later, the emergency lamp above the door flickered on.
Nora reached for her bat.
Diane drew her gun.
“Stay together.”
A telephone began ringing somewhere in the building.
Not a mobile phone.
An old landline.
The sound came from the reception desk.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
Diane motioned for us to remain behind her.
We moved through the dark hallway.
The telephone continued ringing.
Diane lifted the receiver.
No one spoke.
Then a television mounted in the corner turned on by itself.
Chief Everett Sloan appeared on the screen.
He sat behind a desk wearing his formal uniform.
Rows of medals covered his chest.
“Good evening, Diane,” he said.
The video was live.
Diane aimed her gun at the screen as though she could shoot through it.
“How did you find this place?”
Sloan smiled.
“I gave it to you.”
Diane’s face drained of color.
“What?”
“The property was purchased through one of your shell companies.”
“You created those companies for me.”
“Exactly.”
Every safe place Diane had trusted had belonged to him.
Sloan looked toward the camera.
“Margaret, I am sorry our first proper conversation must happen this way.”
“You stood at my husband’s grave.”
“Yes.”
“You promised to find Andrew.”
“I always knew where he was.”
My hands tightened.
“You knew?”
“Not every day. But often enough.”
“You let me believe he abandoned me.”
“It made you manageable.”
Lily stepped toward the television.
“You killed my grandmother.”
Sloan studied her.
“Elena was careless.”
“You murdered her.”
“Colin made that decision.”
“You protected him.”
“I protected a structure larger than any one person.”
Diane shouted, “Where is Robert’s ledger?”
Sloan’s smile disappeared.
“Andrew removed it from the recipe box years ago.”
I looked at Lily.
“What?”
Sloan continued.
“The box was a decoy.”
“Then where is the ledger?” Diane asked.
“Andrew gave it to someone he trusted.”
Lily went still.
Sloan noticed.
“So he never told you.”
“Told me what?” she asked.
“Your father knew he was dying. He needed to place the evidence somewhere no police officer would search.”
Sloan leaned closer to the camera.
“Somewhere that would travel across state lines without suspicion.”
Lily’s hand rose slowly toward her neck.
A small silver pendant hung beneath her shirt.
I had seen it when she first stood at my door.
She pulled it free.
It was shaped like a narrow book.
“My father gave me this in the hospital.”
Diane crossed the room.
“Don’t open it.”
But Lily had already pressed the clasp.
Inside the pendant was not a photograph.
It contained a tiny memory chip.
The ledger.
Andrew had sent it to me around his daughter’s neck.
Sloan smiled.
“Thank you, Lily.”
A red dot appeared on her chest.
Diane saw it first.
“Down!”
She threw herself toward Lily.
The window shattered.
A bullet struck Diane in the side.
She collapsed.
Nora pulled me behind the reception desk.
Lily disappeared into the darkness.
“Lily!” I screamed.
The rear door burst open.
Men rushed inside.
Gunfire filled the clinic.
Nora swung the bat at the first shadow that reached us.
I crawled toward Diane.
Blood spread beneath her body.
“Where is Lily?”
Diane tried to speak.
No sound came out.
A man seized me from behind.
I fought him.
Kicked.
Scratched.
Bit his hand.
Another man grabbed my arms.
Through the broken window, I saw Lily being dragged toward a black SUV.
The pendant was still clutched in her fist.
“Let her go!”
Sloan’s voice continued from the television.
“Bring Diane to the Grand Monarch before midnight.”
The men released me and retreated toward the door.
They left Diane bleeding on the floor.
They left Nora unconscious beside the desk.
But they took Lily.
The SUV disappeared into the darkness.
On the screen, Sloan straightened his medals.
“Come alone, Margaret.”
“You have the ledger,” I shouted. “Why do you need Diane?”
“Because she knows the identity of Beneficiary 17.”
“She said she didn’t.”
“She lied.”
I looked at my wounded sister.
Her eyes remained open.
She had heard him.
Sloan smiled one final time.
“And Margaret?”
“What?”
“Andrew did not die from pancreatic cancer.”
My heart stopped.
“What did you say?”
“The cancer was real.”
Sloan’s face moved closer to the camera.
“But it was not what killed him.”
The screen turned black.
Behind me, Diane whispered four words before losing consciousness.
“I gave him the injection.”……………..
TO BE CONTINUED IN LAST PART…
