Chapter 7
"You can't go back there!" Connor protested, jumping up from the desk. "Aunt Sarah, the police are probably there right now! And Grandmother's security guards will catch you!"
"I don't have a choice, Connor," Sarah explained, placing her hands firmly on the boy's shoulders. The bright, harsh light of the motel room illuminated the fierce determination in her eyes. "If I go to the FBI with just a video, Grandmother's lawyers will claim it's a deepfake. They will tie it up in court for years. We need the banking ledger. We need the physical proof of the stolen money."
"But they'll hurt you!" Grace cried, clutching her mother's scrubs.
"They are going to try," Sarah agreed softly, kneeling to hug her daughter. "But they think I'm a terrified, poor widow on the run. They don't know that I know the truth about your father. They won't expect me to walk right back through the front door."
Sarah didn't waste any more time. She bundled the kids back into the car and drove through the fading afternoon light to Dr. Evans's house. The doctor, a kind, middle-aged man with whom she had worked the ER for five years, took one look at Sarah's panicked face and the traumatized children and opened his doors without a single question.
"Keep them away from the windows, Robert," Sarah pleaded, standing on his porch. "If I'm not back by morning, take the tablet and drive them straight to the federal courthouse in the city. Do not speak to the local police."
"Sarah, what have you gotten yourself into?" Robert asked, his rosy face pale with worry.
"I'm fixing a mistake," Sarah said. She kissed Grace one last time, hugged Connor, and walked back to her car.
The sun was beginning to set as Sarah drove back toward the affluent estate district. The bright blue sky shifted to vivid hues of orange and pink. By the time she reached the perimeter of her mother-in-law's sprawling property, darkness had fallen, and the massive house was illuminated by blazing exterior floodlights.
Sarah parked her car a half-mile down the road, hiding it behind a dense thicket of trees. She walked the rest of the way on foot, her dark medical scrubs blending into the shadows.
She knew the security blind spots. She had lived in the guest house on this property for three years before David died. She slipped through a gap in the tall hedges near the conservatory, moving silently across the manicured lawn.
The backyard, where the horrific birthday party had taken place just hours earlier, was deserted. The ruined cake had been cleaned up, but a few stray pink balloons still bobbed in the evening breeze.
May you like
Sarah crept toward the French doors of the Grandmother's study. Through the glass, the room was bathed in the warm, bright glow of a desk lamp. The study was empty.
With a shaking hand, Sarah retrieved a small, heavy rock from the garden border. She wrapped her scrub jacket around her hand, pressed the rock against the glass near the latch, and struck it hard. The glass shattered with a sharp, terrifying crack.
