Chapter 12 - THE MAN AT THE DOOR
Elise opened the door only after calling Sheriff Daniel Reeves.
Thomas Keene stumbled inside soaked from head to toe.
“Lock it.”
Elise did.
“Who’s coming?”
Thomas stared toward the windows.
“You have cameras?”
“Yes.”
“Turn them off.”
“No.”
“Elise—”
“I spent five years being told what to do by this family. Those days are over.”
Thomas looked at her for a long moment.
Then he gave a humorless laugh.
“You really did change.”
June stood halfway up the staircase.
Elise pointed upward.
“Bedroom.”
“But—”
“Now.”
June reluctantly disappeared.
Thomas lowered his voice.
“Jonathan contacted me six days before he died.”
Elise’s throat tightened.
“He told you what?”
“That he had discovered irregularities inside Marlowe Holdings.”
Elise knew the company well. Jonathan’s grandfather had built it from a regional construction business into a private real-estate empire.
After Jonathan died, Elise learned she owned thirty-eight percent.
Helena had controlled most of the rest through family trusts.
“He thought Helena was stealing?”
Thomas shook his head.
“Much bigger.”
He opened the briefcase.
Inside were photocopies of bank transfers.
Millions of dollars moving through shell companies.
Accounts in Switzerland.
Singapore.
The Cayman Islands.
Elise looked up.
“What is this?”
“Thirty-one years of money laundering.”
The words landed like stones.
“Through Jonathan’s company?”
“Through companies attached to it. Some of the money wasn’t even theirs.”
“Whose?”
Thomas hesitated.
“Politicians. Contractors. Organized crime. People who would kill to keep their names away from these pages.”
Elise stepped back.
“You helped them.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“For twelve years.”
Silence.
“You came here for forgiveness?”
“No.”
He removed a small brass key from his pocket.
“I came because Jonathan left something underneath this house.”
Elise thought of the letter.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“He never told me. He only said that if anything happened to him, you would eventually find the first letter.”
“First?”
Thomas nodded.
“There are seven.”
A noise came from outside.
Glass shattered.
Thomas dropped instantly.
“Elise!”
A bullet tore through the window.
Elise hit the floor.
Another shot struck the wall above them.
June screamed upstairs.
“Stay down!” Elise shouted.
Thomas crawled behind the piano.
Sheriff Reeves’s sirens screamed somewhere beyond the gates.
The attackers fired twice more.
Then tires squealed outside.
By the time police vehicles flooded the driveway, the shooters were gone.
Reeves entered with his weapon drawn.
“Elise!”
“We’re here.”
He helped her up.
Then he noticed Thomas.
His expression hardened.
“What are you doing here?”
Thomas raised both hands.
“Trying to keep her alive.”
Reeves glanced toward the shattered window.
“Start explaining.”
But before Thomas could speak, June came running downstairs.
She held something in her hand.
A black device.
“Mom.”
Elise stared at it.
“Where did you get that?”
“It was under my windowsill.”
Thomas went pale.
Reeves took the device carefully.
A tiny red light blinked.
It was a microphone.
Someone had been listening inside June’s bedroom.
Thomas whispered, “They already know everything.”
Then Elise’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
No voice came through.
Only breathing.
Then a woman spoke.
“You should have burned Jonathan’s letter.”
Elise gripped the phone.
“Helena?”
A soft laugh.
“You always were slower than I hoped.”
The line went dead.
May you like
Helena Vale was alive.
And she had just declared war.
