Chapter 11 - Thirty-Two Million Dollars
Diane contacted me six hours later.
One text.
A location.
A church parking lot in Bellevue.
Ortiz wanted surveillance.
Diane insisted I come alone.
We compromised.
I went.
Police stayed out of sight.
Diane sat in her Mercedes.
When I opened the passenger door, she looked twenty years older.
“You ran.”
“I was scared.”
“Valerie warned me not to trust you.”
“She’s right.”
I stared at her.
“At least you admit it.”
Diane handed me a folder.
“Your father discovered an account.”
“What account?”
“A holding account Vantage used for proceeds from property sales.”
“How much?”
“Thirty-two million dollars.”
I almost laughed.
“Thirty-two million?”
“Possibly more now.”
“That’s what this is about?”
“That’s what everything became about.”
She explained.
Vantage obtained properties below market value or transferred them through fraud.
The properties were sold.
Money moved through shell companies.
Some went to Gavin.
Some to Cole.
Some to lawyers, caregivers, brokers, relatives.
A network.
“And you?”
Diane stared through the windshield.
“I took money.”
“How much?”
“Enough that I stopped being able to tell myself I was only doing paperwork.”
I said nothing.
“Your father found the account numbers.”
“Where?”
“He had a copy.”
“In the safe-deposit box?”
“No.”
My patience snapped.
“Then where is it?”
Diane looked at me.
“Inside the house.”
“What?”
“He hid things in places nobody thought to search.”
“Valerie already tore that place apart.”
“Not the original house.”
I frowned.
Then understood.
Dad had remodeled after buying the property.
The old foundation included a crawlspace beneath the rear addition.
I remembered helping him install access panels when I was seventeen.
“The crawlspace.”
Diane nodded.
“Robert told me once he kept documents under the sunroom.”
“Why tell you?”
“Because at that point he still thought I might help him.”
I wanted to slap her.
Instead I opened the car door.
She grabbed my wrist.
“Do not go there.”
“Why?”
“Because Gavin knows too.”
“How?”
“I told him.”
I slowly turned back.
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
I pulled my arm away.
“You really do destroy everything you touch.”
Her face broke.
“I know.”
Then headlights appeared at the parking lot entrance.
A black SUV.
Diane looked into the mirror.
“No.”
“What?”
“That’s Gavin’s.”
The SUV accelerated.
Ortiz’s unmarked vehicle pulled out from behind the church.
The SUV swerved.
Then another car appeared from the opposite side.
For three seconds the parking lot became a maze of headlights.
Diane screamed.
“DOWN!”
Glass exploded beside my head.
I dropped into the footwell.
Gunshots cracked.
Tires screamed.
Then silence.
Ortiz yanked open my door.
“You hit?”
“No.”
Diane was bleeding from the arm.
The SUV had escaped again.
But this time it left something behind.
A phone.
One of the occupants had dropped it near the curb.
Ortiz picked it up with gloves.
The screen was cracked but still lit.
A navigation app was open.
The last destination wasn’t the church.
It was Mom’s house.
And according to the arrival time—
May you like
someone had already been there for twenty minutes.
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