Chapter 5 - The Price of Blood
"My mother?" The words tasted like ash. "My mother hasn't spoken to me in three years. Not since I refused to pay off my brother's second DUI!"
"Evelyn bought her off, Clara," Croft said, leaning against the marble sink. "A wire transfer of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars hit your mother’s account in Tampa at four this afternoon. In exchange, she signed a sworn statement claiming you have a history of psychotic delusions, self-harm, and false accusations of abuse."
"They're painting me as crazy," I said, the fury rising so fast and hot my hands stopped shaking. "They’re going to say I threw myself down those stairs."
"Exactly. And if you’re crazy, and Julian attacked his sister because he believed your delusions, then Julian belongs in a psychiatric ward, and you belong in state custody."
"Over my dead body," I snarled.
"That can still be arranged, if you're not careful," Croft warned. "Evelyn doesn't play games. She plays scorched earth. If we want Julian out of jail tomorrow morning, we need more than a security tape. Detective Ray already seized the cloud server box from your basement. He logged it into evidence, which means it will 'accidentally' corrupt before the preliminary hearing."
"They didn't get everything," I said, remembering the blue folio. "Megan took the blue folder from my purse, but she dropped a receipt on the stairs. I stuffed it into my bra before the paramedics strapped me down."
I reached inside my sweater and pulled out the crumpled thermal slip.
It was a slip from a private maritime storage facility in Gloucester.
*Locker 412. Access Code: 8841. Client: Meridian Crest LLC.*
Croft took the slip, his eyes widening slightly. "Meridian Crest isn't registered to Megan. It's Evelyn's offshore blind trust. It’s where Arthur Vance’s personal journals were shipped after his funeral."
"What’s in those journals?"
"The truth about Arthur’s heart attack," Croft said quietly. "Arthur didn't have heart disease, Clara. He was an Olympic-class rower until the day he collapsed in his study."
I gripped the edge of the vanity, standing up despite the agony in my hip. "Then we don't go to court tomorrow to defend Julian. We go to Gloucester to get that locker."
"You can barely walk, Clara."
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"I don't need to walk to shoot an engine block," I said, staring at my reflection in the mirror. The fragile, timid girl who had spent three years trying to earn Evelyn's cold approval was gone. In her place was an injured mother with teeth bared. "Get your coat, Marcus. We're going hunting."
***
