Chapter 8
MAYA REED'S LAST SECRET
Nia had dreamed about finding Maya for five years.
In the dreams, she always ran to her.
Sometimes Maya apologized.
Sometimes Nia did.
Sometimes neither spoke.
Reality gave them no such mercy.
Warren Pike held a gun to Maya’s head while Marcus Hale aimed another at Captain Ortiz and Warren Junior covered the tunnel behind them.
The Riverglass dam groaned around them as thousands of tons of water pressed against concrete.
Nia wanted to move.
Maya’s eyes told her not to.
Governor Voss stood closest to the hidden case.
Warren smiled at him.
“Open it.”
Daniel looked at the waterproof box.
“Whatever is inside won’t save you.”
Warren laughed.
“Daniel, I have spent thirty years saving people who later discovered they preferred calling me a criminal.”
“You stole state money.”
“I moved money.”
“You killed witnesses.”
“I prevented panic.”
Nia stared at him.
The frightening part was not that he sounded insane.
He sounded reasonable to himself.
Harper stepped forward.
“My mother knew what you were.”
Warren’s face hardened.
“Your mother was sentimental.”
“She was brave.”
“She was bored.”
Daniel moved.
Ethan caught his arm.
Warren smiled again.
“Ah. The groom.”
Harper’s jaw tightened.
“There is no groom.”
“That is unfortunate. I bought a very expensive gift.”
Ethan stared at him.
“The pendant.”
Warren nodded.
“Marcus placed it in Harper’s dressing room. I hoped Celeste’s locket would disappear in the confusion and everyone would assume the new necklace was sentimental wedding nonsense.”
Harper said, “You didn’t know I’d left the real locket at home.”
“No. Your mother beat me again from the grave.”
Nia looked at Maya.
“What did he do to you?”
Maya’s voice was calm.
“Later.”
“There may not be a later.”
“There will.”
Warren tightened his grip.
“Touching.”
Maya turned her head slightly.
“You still talk too much.”
Warren struck her with the gun.
Nia lunged.
Ortiz caught her.
“Don’t.”
Blood appeared at Maya’s temple.
Nia shook with rage.
Warren looked satisfied.
“Open the case.”
Daniel knelt.
He pulled the waterproof box from the wall and released two corroded latches.
Inside was not a ledger.
It was empty.
Warren stared.
“No.”
Maya smiled through blood.
For the first time, Warren looked afraid.
“No.”
Daniel lifted the empty case.
“Looks like Richard moved it.”
Warren shoved Maya away and aimed at Ethan.
“Where?”
Ethan raised both hands.
“I don’t know.”
“Your father took it.”
“I didn’t know the ledger existed until tonight.”
“Liar.”
Harper stepped between them.
“Shoot him and you still don’t have it.”
Warren’s weapon moved toward her.
Daniel stood.
“Point that at my daughter again and the ledger becomes the least of your problems.”
Warren laughed.
“You still think you’re governor in here.”
“No. I think I’m her father.”
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then Maya did.
She drove her heel backward into Warren’s knee.
He stumbled across the yellow line.
Nia understood.
The spill gate.
Maya screamed, “Now!”
Daniel slapped the red emergency lever on the wall.
An alarm erupted.
A steel panel beneath Warren’s feet dropped open as the maintenance channel activated.
Water exploded through the lower passage.
Warren fell.
He caught the railing with one hand.
Marcus fired.
Ortiz returned fire.
The tunnel became thunder and sparks.
Nia dove toward Maya.
Warren Junior ran for the exit.
Ethan tackled him.
Harper dragged Maya behind the concrete pillar.
Daniel struck Marcus with the empty evidence case.
The gun skidded across the floor.
Ortiz kicked it away.
Warren clung to the railing above the open spill channel.
Water roared beneath him.
“Help me!” he shouted.
Daniel stood over him.
For one terrible second, Nia saw the decision on the governor’s face.
Let go.
End it.
Warren had helped destroy his career, his family, his wife.
One small movement and Riverglass would swallow the man who had hidden behind it for decades.
Harper saw it too.
“Dad.”
Daniel looked at her.
Then he knelt and grabbed Warren’s wrist.
Ortiz helped pull him onto the platform.
Warren coughed water and rage.
Daniel stood over him.
“You don’t get to become another secret.”
Ortiz cuffed him.
Marcus Hale lay wounded but alive.
Warren Junior groaned beneath Ethan’s knee.
The confrontation was over.
But Maya was staring at the empty case.
“That shouldn’t be empty.”
Nia turned to her.
“You knew the ledger was here?”
“Yes.”
“When did you last see it?”
“Five years ago.”
“You’ve known all this time?”
Maya looked at her.
“Nia—”
“No. Not yet. You don’t get to say my name like that yet.”
Maya flinched.
Nia hated herself for the satisfaction it gave her.
Harper touched Maya’s shoulder.
“Could Richard have moved it?”
“He could have.”
Ethan released Warren Junior to two officers.
“My father died six months after Maya disappeared.”
Maya looked at him.
“You’re Ethan.”
“Yes.”
“Richard talked about you.”
Ethan swallowed.
“What did he say?”
“That you were better than him.”
Ethan laughed once, broken.
“He had low standards.”
Maya almost smiled.
Then her expression changed.
“He gave me something the night I disappeared.”
Nia stared.
“What?”
“A key.”
“We found it. R-17.”
“No. Another one.”
Nia’s pulse jumped.
“Where is it?”
Maya looked toward Harper.
“Celeste had it last.”
Harper’s eyes widened.
“What did it open?”
“A safe-deposit box under Richard’s mother’s maiden name.”
Ethan went still.
“Lillian Mercer.”
Abigail Mercer.
Nia turned.
“The seamstress?”
Ethan shook his head.
“No. That can’t be coincidence.”
Harper stared at him.
“Abigail is related to you?”
Ethan looked stunned.
“My grandmother was Lillian Mercer. She had one sister.”
“Abigail.”
“Yes.”
The threads tightened again.
Abigail had not merely been Celeste’s friend.
She was Richard Cole’s aunt.
Ethan’s great-aunt.
And she had failed to mention it.
Maya closed her eyes.
“That means Richard trusted her with the backup.”
“What backup?” Nia demanded.
“The ledger.”
Ethan looked toward the tunnel exit.
“We need to get back to the hospital.”
Ortiz radioed ahead.
No answer from the officer stationed outside Abigail’s room.
She tried again.
Still nothing.
They moved.
The ride back became the longest forty minutes of Nia’s life.
Maya sat beside her in the armored vehicle.
Five years separated them by less than a foot.
Neither knew how to cross it.
Finally Nia said, “Did you watch us?”
Maya looked at her hands.
“Yes.”
“For five years?”
“Whenever it was safe.”
“You watched him cry for you.”
Maya’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“You watched me tell him you loved him.”
“Yes.”
“You could have called.”
“If I called you, Warren would have found the pattern.”
“You called tonight.”
“Because he already had.”
Nia turned toward the window.
“I hate you.”
Maya nodded.
“I know.”
“I love you.”
Maya covered her face.
“I know.”
Nia began crying then.
Not beautifully.
Not quietly.
Five years came out of her in ugly, furious sobs.
Maya reached toward her, stopped, and waited.
Nia hated that too.
Then she grabbed her sister and held on.
Neither apologized.
There would be time for apology if they survived the morning.
At St. Vincent Medical Center, they found the officer outside Abigail’s room unconscious in a stairwell.
The room was empty.
Blood marked the sheets but there was no sign Abigail had been dragged.
She had removed her own IV.
A nurse remembered an older woman in a hospital gown asking for a wheelchair.
Security footage showed Abigail leaving through a service elevator at 3:51 a.m.
Alone.
“She ran,” Harper said.
Maya shook her head.
“She went for the ledger.”
Ethan looked sick.
“Where would Richard have put the box?”
Maya said, “He told me only one thing. The bank was somewhere Warren would never willingly enter.”
Nia frowned.
“A bank is a bank.”
Ethan’s expression changed.
“No.”
“What?”
“My father kept one account at St. Bartholomew’s Credit Union.”
Harper stared.
“The church credit union?”
“It’s inside the diocesan administration building.”
“Why would Warren never go there?”
Ethan looked at Governor Voss.
Daniel answered.
“Because Warren’s father was a priest.”
Everyone went quiet.
Daniel continued.
“He abused both Warren and Marcus when they were boys. Warren never stepped inside a church again.”
Nia felt no sympathy for him.
But suddenly she understood one piece of Richard Cole’s thinking.
He had hidden the evidence behind a door Warren’s trauma would keep closed.
At 5:22 a.m., Ortiz called the credit union manager.
The safe-deposit record existed.
Box 814.
Account holder: Lillian Mercer.
Access log showed no activity for six years.
Until 4:17 that morning.
Someone had opened it.
“Abigail,” Ethan whispered.
They reached the diocesan building at sunrise.
The vault stood open.
Box 814 had been removed.
Abigail Mercer sat on the floor beside the empty slot.
Alive.
She held a pistol.
And across from her stood Governor Daniel Voss.
Nia froze.
Daniel should have been behind them with the police convoy.
Somehow he had arrived first.
Abigail aimed the gun at his chest.
Harper whispered, “Dad?”
Daniel did not look away from Abigail.
“Tell them,” she said.
His shoulders sagged.
“Abigail.”
“Tell them what you did with Richard’s ledger.”
Nia’s breath caught.
Daniel looked at Harper.
Then at Maya.
Then at Nia.
May you like
And finally he said the sentence none of them expected.
“I took it five years ago.”
