Chapter 12 - The Warehouse
Ortiz refused to let me go near the old warehouse. I refused to sit at home while Owen was missing.
We compromised the way people do when every option is bad: the police would follow at a distance, and I would carry a copy of the ledger while the original remained with Marcus.
Paige rode beside me in an unmarked car. She was shaking so hard she could barely fasten her seat belt.
“I should have protected him,” she said.
“You’re protecting him now.”
“That doesn’t erase the first part.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
The old warehouse lot was fenced off, but the gate stood open. A single light burned inside the rebuilt structure that occupied the site. The city had abandoned the project after a contractor discovered unstable soil.
At the center of the building stood the original concrete foundation, blackened in places by the old fire.
“Owen!” Paige shouted.
A small figure appeared on the second-floor catwalk.
His hands were tied in front of him, and a man stood behind him with a gun.
The man was Grant Pike.
“Mara,” he called. “You always were the brave one.”
Ortiz signaled for her team to hold position. I stepped into the open.
“Let Owen go.”
“Give me the ledger.”
“It’s in the car.”
Pike laughed. “You’ve inherited your father’s talent for lying.”
“I inherited nothing from him.”
“You inherited Jonah’s stubbornness. That’s why he died.”
Owen was crying silently. Paige made a sound beside me, but Ortiz held her back.
Pike led Owen toward a stairwell. “Your father never intended to kill Jonah. He intended to frighten him. Your mother panicked. Everyone made choices.”
“You made choices too.”
“I made profitable ones.”
From the shadows behind Pike, Warren stepped into view.
He looked thinner than he had in the courthouse photographs, but his posture was unchanged. He held a second gun.
“Dad,” Paige whispered.
Warren smiled at her. “You should have taken Owen and left.”
“You drugged him.”
“I disciplined him.”
“You used him.”
Warren shrugged. “Children are useful when adults believe they are innocent.”
The words made Owen flinch.
I kept my voice level. “You’re going to prison.”
“Not if the ledger disappears and Rose Vale is discredited as an heir.”
“You can’t erase her.”
“I erased her once.”
Pike moved Owen toward the edge of the catwalk. A rotten section of railing gave way beneath the boy’s hand.
Owen screamed.
Paige broke from the officers and ran forward. The sound distracted Pike. Ortiz fired at the gun in his hand, knocking it across the concrete.
Warren raised his weapon toward me.
I grabbed Paige and pulled her behind a support beam as bullets struck the wall.
Owen slipped through the broken railing.
A safety line caught his waist, leaving him dangling above the foundation.
Paige reached for him, but the line began to fray.
I crawled beneath the catwalk, ignoring the sharp pain in my knees. Owen stretched toward me.
“Don’t look down,” I told him.
“I can’t hold on.”
“You don’t have to. I have you.”
I caught his wrist just as the line snapped.
His weight pulled me toward the edge.
Paige grabbed my belt. Ortiz reached her, then another officer. Together, they dragged us onto solid concrete.
Above us, Warren disappeared through a side door.
Pike was arrested, but the search for Warren continued.
Owen clung to me, sobbing into my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I know.”
As ambulances arrived, Ortiz found something beneath the catwalk: a small metal box.
Inside was a photograph of Jonah, Rose, and my mother taken before the fire.
May you like
On the back, Jonah had written a single sentence.
If Warren ever runs, look where the house first learned to keep a secret.
