Chapter 6 - The MillI didn’t go alone.
I wanted to.
Every instinct told me to grab the memory card, drive to the textile mill, and drag Rebecca out myself.
Ortiz stopped me.
“If Richard wants the ledger, you are useful alive until you hand it over.”
“And Rebecca?”
“Same reason.”
“For now.”
“Yes.”
I hated the honesty.
We made a copy.
Then another.
Federal agents uploaded the entire ledger to secure servers.
The original card went into my pocket.
At 9:18 p.m., I drove toward the mill.
No police cars followed visibly.
Ortiz had teams positioned two miles away.
A drone watched from above.
I wore no wire because Richard’s message specifically warned against electronics.
Instead, a tiny emergency beacon had been sewn into the lining of my jacket.
The mill appeared beyond a line of dead pine trees.
Broken windows.
Rusting roof.
A century ago, hundreds of workers had passed through those doors.
Now it looked like the kind of place people disappeared inside.
I parked.
The doors stood open.
“Rebecca!”
My voice echoed.
A light switched on.
She was sitting in the center of the floor.
Hands bound.
Alive.
I ran toward her.
“Stop.”
Richard Vale stepped from behind a support column.
Gray hair.
Expensive coat.
A pistol hanging casually from his hand.
Margaret appeared next.
Then Travis.
Three people.
One conspiracy.
Rebecca stared at me.
“I told you not to come.”
I almost laughed.
“You know me better than that.”
Richard held out his hand.
“The ledger.”
“Let her go.”
“Mark.”
“You want it? She walks.”
He smiled.
“You still think you have bargaining power.”
“I have the only thing keeping you out of prison.”
“Do you?”
That smile bothered me.
Then Margaret said, “He made copies.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
Richard’s smile vanished.
“Did you?”
I said nothing.
He raised the gun.
“Answer.”
“Yes.”
Travis swore.
Margaret looked surprisingly calm.
“Then killing him accomplishes nothing.”
Richard rounded on her.
“We can still contain this.”
“No, Richard. We can’t.”
That was the first crack.
I looked at Margaret.
“You’re turning on him?”
She gave me a sad smile.
“I should’ve done it years ago.”
Richard’s face changed.
“Margaret.”
She ignored him.
“I didn’t kill Julia.”
Rebecca stared at her.
“You moved the money.”
“Yes.”
“You helped him.”
“Yes.”
“But Julia?”
Margaret looked at Richard.
“He did that alone.”
Richard laughed.
“You expect anyone to believe you?”
“I recorded you.”
For the first time, he looked afraid.
Margaret reached into her coat.
Richard swung the gun toward her.
Everything happened at once.
Rebecca screamed.
Travis lunged.
I dropped.
A gunshot cracked through the mill.
Then floodlights exploded through the broken windows.
“POLICE! DROP THE WEAPON!”
Richard spun.
Travis ran.
Margaret fell to the floor.
I crawled toward Rebecca.
“Mark!”
Another shot.
Concrete chipped beside me.
Then officers poured in.
Richard disappeared through a side corridor.
Travis made it thirty yards before a K-9 unit caught him outside.
I reached Rebecca.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
I cut the tape around her wrists using a utility knife from my pocket.
She threw her arms around me.
For one second, we were no longer divorced.
We were simply two terrified parents who had almost lost everything.
Then I noticed Margaret.
Blood spread across her shoulder.
A medic rushed over.
She grabbed my sleeve.
“Your father.”
I froze.
“What?”
“He knew.”
“About the money?”
She nodded weakly.
“He tried to stop us.”
My stomach dropped.
“He died of a heart attack.”
“No.”
The word barely escaped her lips.
“Richard arranged it.”
The mill suddenly felt very far away.
Five years of grief rearranged itself inside me.
“My father was murdered?”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Before she could answer, an officer shouted from the corridor.
They had found Richard’s exit.
A tunnel led beneath the mill to an old service road.
He was gone.
But he left something behind.
His coat.
His phone.
And a handwritten note.
Not to Rebecca.
Not to police.
To me.
Your father thought he could ruin me too.
Below it:
Ask Rebecca what she did the night he died.
I turned toward her.
Rebecca had seen the note.
The color drained from her face.
“Rebecca?”
She shook her head.
“Mark…”
“What did you do?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I was there.”
The words landed harder than any punch.
“You were with my father?”
“Yes.”
“When he died?”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
Her answer destroyed the last version of my past I still believed.
“Because your father wasn’t trying to expose Richard that night.”
May you like
She swallowed.
“He was meeting him to take another payment.”
