Chapter 3
Z
My heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped bird. I looked from the front door back to Mara, whose face had gone completely ghost-white. The fear in her eyes wasn't the bitter resentment of an abandoned daughter anymore—it was raw, primal terror.
"Who is that?" I whispered urgently, moving closer to her. "Mara, who is at the door?"
"I... I don't know," she stammered, backing away toward the kitchen hallway. "I swear I don't know!"
"Mara! Don't make us break this door down!" the voice barked again from the porch. "Irene is in there with you. We tracked her car from the funeral home. We know he left it to one of you. Open the damn door!"
They tracked me.
The realization sent a chill straight down my spine. The black sedan. The sudden appearance. Ever since Zane breathed his last breath in that hospice bed, I had been watched.
"The letter," I hissed, grabbing the sheet of paper from the coffee table and shoving it into my purse. "Is there another way out of here? A back door?"
"The kitchen," Mara whispered, her voice cracking. "It leads to the alley behind the house."
"Move. Now!"
We didn't wait. Mara turned and sprinted down the narrow hallway toward the back of the house just as a heavy, resounding thud shook the front entrance. Someone was kicking the door in. Wood splintered with a sickening crack.
We burst into the kitchen. Mara fumbled with the deadbolt on the back door, her hands shaking so violently she dropped the keys onto the linoleum floor.
"Damn it!" she sobbed, dropping to her knees to scramble for them.
"Hurry!" I glanced over my shoulder. Through the kitchen doorway, I saw the front door burst inward, crashing off its hinges. Two tall, broad figures dressed in dark coats stepped into the foyer. Rain dripped from their shoulders. The man in front was middle-aged, with a scarred cheek and cold, dead eyes that swept over the living room before locking onto the hallway leading straight to us.
"In the back!" he yelled to his companion.
"Got 'em!" Mara cried out, forcing the key into the lock and throwing the back door open.
Cold rain and wind rushed into the kitchen, whipping my hair across my face. We tumbled out onto the small wooden back porch and slammed the door shut behind us, locking it from the outside before plunging down the steps into the muddy alley.
"My car is around the front!" I shouted over the roar of the downpour, my shoes slipping in the mud.
"We can't go to the front! They're standing right there!" Mara yelled back, holding her coat closed over her chest. "Follow me! My garage is down the alley!"
We ran through the blinding rain, our lungs burning, the mud soaking through our clothes. Every shadow in the narrow alley looked like a threat. My mind was spinning out of control. Ledger? What ledger? What were those men talking about?
Mara dragged open the side door of a detached wooden garage, shoving me inside before slipping in herself and throwing the heavy iron latch shut. It was pitch black inside, smelling heavily of old motor oil, damp lawnmowers, and rust.
We crouched low behind an old station wagon, breathing heavily, trying desperately to quiet our ragged gasps. Outside, footsteps splashed heavily through the puddles in the alley.
"Check the alley!" a voice roared outside the garage wall, only feet away from where we sat huddled together. "They couldn't have gone far on foot!"
I clamped a hand over my mouth, pressing my back against the cold metal of the station wagon. Beside me, Mara was shaking uncontrollably, her eyes wide with panic in the dim light filtering through the dirty garage window.
We waited. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. A minute that felt like an eternity.
The heavy footsteps gradually faded, moving further down the alley toward the main street.
Mara slowly let out a trembling breath, collapsing back against the tires. "Who were those men, Irene? What did Zane get us into?"
"I don't know," I whispered, pulling my wet hair back from my face. "They mentioned a ledger. They said Zane left it to one of us."
"A ledger? He didn't send me a ledger! He sent me a letter and a deed!" Mara pulled the crumpled envelope from her pocket, her voice rising in frantic panic. "That's all! Look at it! There's no ledger here!"
"Keep your voice down!" I hissed, grabbing her arm. "They're still out there!"
I pulled my purse into my lap, opening it up with trembling fingers. I pulled out the letter Zane had written to Mara, along with the cream envelope he had handed me on his deathbed. I reached deep inside the envelope, feeling around the thick paper structure.
My fingers brushed against something hard and flat tucked into the very bottom lining of the envelope—something I hadn't felt when I held it earlier because of how thick the cardstock was.
"What is that?" Mara whispered, leaning closer.
I worked my fingers into the seam of the envelope and tore the inner lining open.
Out fell a small, flat, metallic object no larger than a credit card. It was a dark grey USB flash drive, heavy and cold to the touch. Etched onto the metallic surface were four simple letters:
A. V. - L. G.
I stared at it, my blood running cold.
Arthur Vance.
"Arthur Vance..." I breathed out, the truth crashing over me like a tidal wave. "His business partner. The one who went to prison ten years ago."
"What is that thing?" Mara asked, looking at the drive as if it were a venomous snake.
"It's the stolen money," I said, the pieces finally assembling themselves in my mind into a horror story I had been living without ever knowing it. "Arthur Vance didn't steal that money alone. Zane was his partner. Zane helped him hide millions of dollars. When Arthur went to prison, Zane kept the lion's share. He laundered it, hid it, and used a portion of it to create your trust fund."
"And those men..." Mara pointed toward the garage door. "Who are they?"
"They're either Arthur Vance's people... or the people Vance stole the money from," I said grimly. "And Zane didn't just give you a gift, Mara. He gave us a target."
A sudden sound shattered the silence inside the garage—the sharp, metallic crunch of a crowbar prying open the side door latch.
SNAP.
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The garage door creaked open. A tall silhouette stepped into the doorway, framed by the grey, rain-slicked light of the alley. The man with the scarred cheek stepped inside, holding a heavy black pistol at his side.
"Found you," he said quietly, his voice dripping with sinister satisfaction.
