Chapter 6 - The Letter Julian Never Sent
Dr. Voss glanced at the cassette in Peter’s hand. It was a small movement, but Mara saw it. His shoulders tightened.
His eyes left her and fixed on the tape.
“You know what is on it,” she said.
Voss’s expression became professional again.
“I know only that you are trespassing on private property.”
“You signed a false psychiatric report.”
“I evaluated a distressed woman who had been harassing a patient.”
“You never met me.”
He did not answer. Behind them, Charles stepped from the tunnel. Smoke drifted around his shoulders.
“Give me the tape, Peter.”
Peter held it higher.
“You promised my daughter’s treatment would continue.”
“It will.”
“You said that before you ordered the archive burned.”
Charles’s gaze hardened.
“Lila’s clinic is still open.”
“Her insurance was canceled yesterday.”
For the first time, Charles looked inconvenienced rather than powerful.
“You should not have forced me to reconsider our arrangement.”
Mara understood then that Peter had not brought them to the archive out of sudden courage. He had reached the point at which fear no longer protected his daughter. Julian turned to Voss.
“You are going to lower the syringe and leave.” Voss laughed softly.
“You still think you can give orders.”
“No. I think you know what happens if I die before the trust is activated. The foundation goes into court, and every medical report you signed becomes evidence.”
Voss’s eyes flicked to Charles. Mara added,
“And if you sedate me, the bruising from the injection will be documented. You would be putting your license beside a murder charge.”
The doctor’s hand lowered by an inch.
“She is bluffing,” Charles said.
“No,” Julian replied.
“She is not.”
Mara could have kissed him for that certainty. She could also have struck him for all the times he had failed to show it. The old rail line ran along a steep embankment. Beyond it, the creek had risen over its banks.
A fallen tree bridged part of the gap, its roots exposed. Peter whispered,
“When I move, run left.”
Mara nodded. Peter threw the cassette. Charles caught it instinctively. Peter charged Voss.
The doctor stumbled back. Julian grabbed Mara’s hand, and they ran along the rail bed. Elena followed, crying out when the mud pulled at her shoes. Behind them, Charles shouted.
A gunshot cracked through the storm. Mara reached the fallen tree and stopped. The bridge was slick, narrow, and several feet above the floodwater.
“I can’t cross that,” Elena said.
“You can,” Mara answered.
“Look at me, not the water.”
Julian went first, limping across with his arms out for balance. He reached the far side and turned.
“Give me your hand.”
Mara stepped onto the trunk. The baby shifted hard beneath her ribs. She breathed through the pressure and moved one careful foot at a time. Halfway across, Voss appeared on the rail bed with the syringe gone and a pistol in his hand.
“Mara,” Julian called.
“Keep moving.”
She did not look back. The trunk rolled beneath her shoe. Julian lunged forward. His hand closed around hers just as she slipped.
Pain tore through her shoulder, but he held on.
“I have you.”
“You’d better.”
He pulled her onto solid ground. Elena crossed next, followed by Peter, who was bleeding from his forehead. Another gunshot struck the tree. They ran into the woods until the sound of the rail line disappeared.
After an hour, they reached an abandoned ranger station above the creek. Peter locked the door while Julian lit a propane lantern. Mara sank onto a wooden bench, one hand over her belly. The baby moved again, steady and strong.
Julian knelt in front of her.
“Are you hurt?”
“My shoulder. Nothing serious.”
“The baby?”
“Moving.”
He closed his eyes in relief. Mara watched him.
“You should have told me you were injured.”
“I didn’t know how.”
“You could have started with the truth.”
“I had no truth.”
“You had doubt.”
He looked at her.
“You doubted me,” she said.
“Even if Charles told you I was a thief, part of you believed him.”
Julian’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew you were angry about the money.”
“What money?”
“The money your father owed the foundation.”
Mara stared at him. Julian looked away.
“Charles showed me records saying Simon Hart had taken three hundred thousand dollars. He said you knew about it.”
“My father did not owe your family a cent.”
Peter placed the black box on the table.
“The records were altered.”
Mara opened the ledger. The first pages contained property transfers and account numbers. Near the back, she found a series of handwritten notes in Gideon’s script. SIMON REFUSED.
CHARLES THREATENED MARA. The next line had been scratched out. She turned the page. A pocket had been cut into the leather cover.
Inside was a folded sheet of paper. Mara recognized Julian’s handwriting. He had written it before the crash. I am leaving this with Peter because I no longer trust the office.
If Mara comes to the house, give her the blue ledger and tell her I chose her. Whatever Charles says, I did not end our relationship. I am going to ask her to marry me, and I want the child to know I tried to come home.
Mara stopped reading. Julian took the paper from her with shaking fingers. The room was silent except for rain against the station roof.
“I was pregnant when you wrote this,” Mara said.
“You didn’t know yet.”
“I knew the next morning.”
He looked at her.
“And you told me in the letter Charles intercepted.”
“Yes.”
Julian pressed the paper to his mouth. His regret was not theatrical. It bent him inward, as if the weight had finally reached the part of him that had been numb. Peter took a cassette recorder from the cabinet.
“There is a battery inside.”
He inserted the tape. Gideon Hartwell’s voice filled the ranger station, roughened by age and fear.
“If anything happens to me, Charles arranged it. But the final decision was signed by Elena.”
Julian rose so quickly his chair scraped the floor. The recording continued.
“She believes she is buying time. She does not understand that Charles has already chosen the heir he wants.”
The tape clicked off. Elena covered her face. Julian turned toward her.
“What did you sign?”
She lowered her hands.
“The order to remove your father from the foundation,” she whispered.
May you like
“I thought it was only a legal maneuver.”
Mara picked up the ledger. Inside the back cover, beneath the hidden pocket, another line had been written. CHARLES DID NOT CAUSE THE CRASH. THE PERSON WHO DID WAS SOMEONE MARA TRUSTS.
