Chapter 12 - Rosa’s Confession
Rosa surrendered the next morning.
No dramatic chase.
No gunfight.
She called me.
Asked for twenty minutes.
Then walked into a federal field office with an attorney and a folder containing evidence she had hidden for two years.
I watched the interview through glass.
Rosa looked smaller than she did in my kitchen.
Without an apron or the authority of her domain, she looked like what she was.
A sixty-two-year-old woman who had spent half her life trapped between powerful people.
When agents allowed me inside, she could barely meet my eyes.
“You took June’s children.”
“To protect them.”
“You could have told me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Thomas had people in your security.”
“Marcus?”
“No.”
That surprised me.
“Who?”
She gave a name.
Caleb Dunn.
Night security supervisor.
He had already disappeared.
One more problem.
Rosa folded her hands.
“Thomas ordered me to bring June and the children to the factory.”
“You obeyed.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if I didn’t, Caleb would have taken them.”
“You expect that to excuse it?”
“No.”
Good.
I was tired of people converting explanation into absolution.
“What did you do to Evelyn?”
Rosa’s face broke.
“I tried to save her.”
“Tell me.”
She did.
After the crash, Evelyn was transported to Room Seventeen.
Thomas wanted the drive.
Martin was unconscious.
Victor arrived later.
Rosa had been working at the facility secretly as a cook and caretaker years before she came to my house.
Another hidden life.
Thomas ordered doctors to stabilize Evelyn.
For nearly seventy-two hours, she remained alive.
Evelyn refused to reveal the location of the drive.
Thomas threatened me.
Not directly.
He showed her surveillance photographs of me.
Routes.
Restaurants.
My office.
He told her if she did not cooperate, I would die.
“What did she say?”
Rosa cried.
“She laughed at him.”
That sounded like Evelyn.
“She said you were too stubborn to die on schedule.”
I closed my eyes.
For one second she was alive again.
Then Rosa continued.
“Evelyn told him destroying you would only prove she was right about him.”
“What happened next?”
“Thomas ordered sedation.”
“Did he kill her?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
Rosa looked down.
“Victor.”
I stood so quickly the chair moved backward.
“Explain.”
“He arrived the third night.”
“Why?”
“Thomas called him.”
“What happened?”
“They argued.”
“About?”
“You.”
Victor wanted Thomas to disappear again.
Thomas wanted control of Blackwell restored.
Evelyn had threatened both.
Then Rosa heard a medical alarm.
When she entered, Evelyn was convulsing.
Victor stood near the IV.
“What did he put in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see him inject something?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because he was holding a syringe.”
I wanted certainty.
Not suspicion.
“What happened to the syringe?”
“Thomas took it.”
“Convenient.”
“I know.”
“Did Evelyn say anything?”
Rosa nodded.
“What?”
“She looked at Victor.”
Rosa wiped her eyes.
“And said, ‘You became him.’”
Silence.
Then Evelyn’s heart stopped.
The doctors attempted resuscitation.
They failed.
The official death time was changed backward to match the crash.
Martin was threatened into silence.
Rosa was placed in my house months later.
“By whom?”
“Thomas.”
“To spy on me?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
She looked at me.
“To protect you.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Everyone who betrays me eventually claims protection.”
“I know.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because Evelyn asked me to watch you.”
I stared.
“Before she died?”
Rosa nodded.
“What exactly did she say?”
Rosa’s voice broke.
“She said, ‘He’ll think anger makes him strong.’”
My throat tightened.
“She said, ‘Make sure he eats.’”
I looked away.
That was such an Evelyn thing to say.
After everything.
Account Seventeen.
Victor.
My father.
Her own death approaching.
She worried I would forget to eat.
Rosa continued.
“So I came to the house.”
“You lied to me every day.”
“Yes.”
“Cooked for me.”
“Yes.”
“Watched me grieve.”
Rosa cried.
“Yes.”
I wanted to hate her cleanly.
But nothing in this story remained clean.
“Where is Caleb Dunn?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who is he working for?”
“Thomas.”
“Thomas is in federal custody.”
Rosa gave me a look.
“You think that stops Account Seventeen?”
No.
I didn’t.
“Who takes over if Thomas is arrested?”
She hesitated.
“That is what Evelyn never discovered.”
“Someone above Victor?”
“Not above.”
“Then what?”
“Beside.”
Account Seventeen had redundancy.
Thomas wasn’t the only head.
“Who?”
Rosa shook her head.
“I never knew.”
An agent entered with urgent news.
Thomas Blackwell had been transported to a federal medical center after complaining of chest pain.
During transport, the convoy was attacked.
Two agents injured.
Driver killed.
Thomas gone.
My father had escaped custody in less than twenty-four hours.
Exactly the kind of event I should have expected.
Then the second piece of news arrived.
Victor Hale had disappeared from secured detention in Rockford.
Two men.
Both gone.
At nearly the same time.
Either they were working together again.
Or each understood the same thing.
The war over Account Seventeen had entered its final stage.
May you like
And June Carter, who had begun all of this by eating cold rice on my pantry floor, now possessed the only surviving complete archive her father had ever created.
Everyone would come for her.
