Chapter 10 - WHO CAN YOU TRUST?
Emily backed away from Ruiz.
“Don’t move.”
Ruiz lifted both hands.
“Emily, listen.”
“You’re in his ledger.”
“So was half the damn county.”
“Not helping.”
Emergency lights came on.
Claire squinted at the page.
“That payment isn’t hers.”
Ruiz looked at her.
“You know that?”
“L. Ruiz was Luis Ruiz.”
Emily frowned.
Ruiz slowly lowered her weapon.
“My father.”
Silence.
“He was a homicide detective,” Ruiz said. “He died eleven years ago.”
Margaret asked, “Did he work on my father’s accident?”
Ruiz’s expression changed.
“Yes.”
Emily held up the ledger.
“Then Thomas paid him.”
Ruiz shook her head.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“My father was dirty.”
The words clearly hurt.
Ruiz continued.
“I joined the department because I spent half my childhood proving to myself I wasn’t him.”
Claire looked at the ledger.
“If Thomas paid Luis, he might have buried evidence.”
“Or he might have been gathering it,” Ruiz said.
Emily frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“My father left me a locked case. I never opened it.”
“Why?”
“Because the last thing he said before he died was, ‘Some truths don’t free you. They just pick a new prison.’”
Emily stared at her.
“Your family is almost as messed up as mine.”
“Give it time.”
They drove to Ruiz’s apartment.
The case was buried in a closet.
Inside were photographs from Charles Ashford’s crash.
Brake lines.
A mechanic’s report.
And an unsigned arrest warrant for Thomas.
Ruiz sat down.
“My father wasn’t taking bribes.”
Margaret looked at a handwritten note.
“He was working with Charles.”
Ruiz nodded.
“There’s more.”
A photograph showed Thomas meeting a man outside a warehouse.
Samuel Pike.
Emily felt another betrayal.
“No.”
Nora looked away.
Emily noticed.
“You knew.”
Nora whispered, “Samuel met Thomas years after the fire.”
Samuel was brought from the hospital under escort.
When he saw the photograph, he sighed.
“I knew this day was coming.”
Emily threw it at him.
“You said you were helping.”
“I was.”
“You met Thomas.”
“I worked for him.”
Margaret stepped forward.
“After he stole my daughter?”
“For eleven years.”
Emily looked disgusted.
Samuel didn’t defend himself.
“I became his driver.”
“Why?”
“To collect evidence.”
Emily laughed.
“Everybody in this story collects evidence instead of calling the police.”
Samuel looked at Ruiz.
“Some police were his.”
Ruiz said, “What did you find?”
Samuel pulled up his sleeve.
A scar crossed his forearm.
“Thomas discovered what I was doing.”
Emily’s anger weakened.
“He did that?”
“With a knife.”
“Why are you alive?”
Samuel’s smile was empty.
“He wanted someone alive who knew what happened if Claire ever talked.”
Claire whispered, “Insurance.”
Samuel nodded.
“Mutual destruction kept everyone quiet.”
Margaret asked, “Where would Thomas go?”
Samuel thought.
Then looked at Emily.
“The hospital.”
Emily’s skin went cold.
“St. Matthew’s was demolished.”
“Most of it.”
Samuel shook his head.
“The original maternity wing was sealed, not demolished. Ashford Industries owns the block.”
Ruiz stood.
“Why would he go there?”
Samuel pointed to Charles’s vault code.
“The private bank named in that code closed fifteen years ago.”
“So?”
“The vault was transferred.”
“Where?”
Samuel looked at Margaret.
“To an underground secure archive beneath the old maternity wing.”
Emily’s phone buzzed.
A text from Thomas.
A photograph of her apartment door.
Then another.
Her roommate Jenna tied to a chair.
COME HOME, EMILY.
May you like
WE NEED TO TALK WITHOUT YOUR MOTHER.
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