Chapter 14 - Inside the Cross
The gold cross had split along one edge when it hit the pavement.
Inside was a microSD card.
Detective Hill stared at it in the evidence bag and said, “That is either the luckiest break of this case or the most obvious trap I have ever seen.”
Rebecca, wrapped in a blanket beside an ambulance, coughed and said, “Both can be true.”
Miriam and Garrick had escaped through an old service tunnel beneath the baptism room. Church renovation plans showed the tunnel connecting to a utility building two blocks away. By the time officers reached it, the door was open and an abandoned sedan sat nearby.
They had planned their exit.
The fire department contained the blaze before the sanctuary was destroyed, but the rear offices burned badly.
Conveniently, those offices stored Hopewell’s paper financial records.
Also conveniently, federal agents had already seized electronic copies that afternoon after Moreno contacted them.
For once, Garrick’s timing was late.
At the hospital, Dr. Shah examined me and found that one drain had partially dislodged during the escape. She replaced the dressing and gave Nolan a stare capable of reducing concrete to powder.
“She should not have been carried that way.”
“There was gunfire,” he said.
“Then I will allow it exactly once.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
Rebecca was admitted two floors above me with a concussion and fractured rib. Police placed an officer outside her room.
At three in the morning, Hill returned with preliminary results from the microSD card.
“It’s encrypted,” he said.
“Of course it is.”
“But we recovered metadata and several unencrypted thumbnails.”
He showed us printed images.
Bank ledgers.
Passport scans.
Insurance documents.
Photographs of me entering doctors’ offices.
Photographs of Nolan outside his apartment.
A photograph of Dr. Crane speaking to a woman in a parking lot.
And one image that made Nolan stop breathing.
Our father.
In the garage the night he died.
The photograph was taken from above, likely from a security camera.
Dad was standing beside his car.
Garrick faced him.
And behind Garrick stood Bethany.
“She said she wasn’t there,” I whispered.
Hill nodded. “She lied.”
The next image showed Dad on the ground.
Bethany knelt beside him.
Garrick looked toward the garage entrance.
The timestamp was twelve minutes before Nolan’s emergency call.
“Why didn’t they call 911?” Nolan asked.
No one had an answer.
A third image showed Bethany holding something small near Dad’s arm.
The resolution was poor.
It could have been a syringe.
It could have been a pen.
It could have been nothing.
Hill said, “We are obtaining the original garage surveillance archive if it still exists.”
“After five years?”
“It may have been backed up by the building security contractor.”
Nolan stared at the printout. “Bethany was there.”
“Yes.”
“And she removed the vial cap from evidence later.”
“That is what the log suggests.”
I thought of her crying in court.
Weak, Miriam had called her.
Maybe weakness had nothing to do with it.
Maybe Bethany had been carrying murder inside her for five years.
At sunrise, she called Camille.
Her voice was frantic.
“I need protection.”
Camille put her on speaker with Hill present.
“Where are you?”
“In my car.”
“Do not tell us the location over an unsecured line. Call 911 and go to the nearest police station.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because Garrick has my daughter.”
The room went silent.
Bethany had a seven-year-old named Chloe.
I had met her at family dinners, a shy child who loved horses and drew stars on napkins.
“What do you mean he has her?” I asked.
Bethany started sobbing.
“He picked her up from my ex-husband’s house. He told him I sent him.”
“When?” Hill asked.
“Last night during the church fire.”
“Have you spoken to Garrick?”
“He sent me a picture.”
“What does he want?”
“The card from Miriam’s cross.”
Hill’s jaw tightened.
“He knows we have it?”
“He knows everything.”
“How?”
Bethany’s breathing became ragged.
“I don’t know.”
I did.
Or at least I knew what the pattern suggested.
Every time we moved, Garrick learned quickly. The hospital. The Crane interview. The church operation. The cross.
Someone inside the investigation was leaking.
Hill saw the thought on my face.
“So do I,” he said.
He took his phone, removed the battery—a rarity I had not known was possible on his device—and placed it in a drawer.
“From this moment, no operational details leave this room unless I approve them face to face.”
Nolan looked at him. “Including your own department?”
“Especially my own department.”
Bethany whispered through the speaker, “There’s something else.”
“What?” I asked.
“The night your father died, Garrick didn’t inject him.”
My heart hammered.
“Who did?”
“I don’t know that anyone did.”
“You were holding a syringe.”
Silence.
“I was trying to save him.”
“With what?”
“Epinephrine. I thought he was crashing from an allergic reaction.”
“Why?”
“Because Miriam told me he had been exposed to something.”
“What something?”
Bethany’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“Bee venom.”
Nolan stared at me.
Our father had been severely allergic to bee stings.
He carried an EpiPen for twenty years.
Hill asked, “Was there a bee at the scene?”
“No.”
“Then why did Miriam tell you that?”
Bethany was crying harder now.
“Because she knew what Garrick put in Arthur’s coffee.”
My stomach turned.
“What did he put in it?”
“I never saw the container. Miriam said it would mimic an allergic event and trigger his heart.”
“Then why call you?”
“To make it look like we tried to help.”
Nolan’s face went blank with fury.
“Bethany, where is Chloe?”
“I don’t know.”
A male voice suddenly sounded behind her.
“Hang up.”
Bethany gasped.
The line went dead.
Hill grabbed another phone and began issuing orders.
Thirty seconds later, my own phone received a photograph.
Chloe sat on a motel bed holding a stuffed horse.
Beside her was Garrick.
He was smiling.
The message beneath it read:
MIDNIGHT TOMORROW. THE CARD FOR THE GIRL.
May you like
Then another message appeared.
AND LENA COMES ALONE.
