Chapter 11 - The Shadow Behind the Curtain
Troopers dragged Robert down the stairs, forcing him face-first onto the rain-soaked tarmac and snapping zip-ties tightly around his wrists.
Patricia struggled violently as two officers pinned her against the side of the police cruiser. “Get off me! Eleanor! Tell them to get off me! You have no right to do this!”
Grandma stepped out of the town car, holding a large black umbrella, her cane firmly planted in the puddles. I stood behind her, cradling Lily beneath my coat, watching the woman who had stolen my livelihood and taken my husband’s life.
Grandma walked to within five feet of Patricia.
Patricia looked up, her hair plastered to her face by the driving rain, her eyes wild and bloodshot.
“You think you’re righteous, Eleanor?” Patricia laughed hysterically, a sound devoid of sanity. “You think Robert and I did this alone? You stupid, blind old woman!”
Grandma didn’t flinch. “You will spend the rest of your natural life in a concrete cell, Patricia. Both of you.”
“You think $180,000 and an insurance policy is all that was taken?” Patricia spat, spraying saliva into the cold air. “Who do you think authorized the shipping schedules through Aegis? Who do you think told Robert that David was going to the authorities? Look at your own board of directors, Eleanor!”
Richard, who was standing beside Detective Miller examining the contents of Robert’s fallen briefcases, suddenly froze.
He held up a carbon-copy manifest pulled from the top of the pile.
“Richard?” Grandma asked, her voice faltering slightly. “What is it?”
Richard slowly walked toward us, his face pale under the tarmac lights. He held out the manifest to Grandma, his hand shaking.
“The primary shareholder of Aegis Maritime,” Richard whispered, looking not at Patricia, but past Grandma, directly into the dark shadows near the airport hangar. “It isn't Robert.”
“Then who is it?” Grandma demanded.
Before Richard could answer, a black SUV with tinted windows rolled quietly past the outer security gate, stopping right behind the perimeter fence. The driver’s window rolled down an inch, revealing the cold silhouette of a man holding a burner phone to his ear.
Richard’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, answering it with a trembling breath.
A voice came through the speaker, crisp, familiar, and terrifyingly calm.
May you like
*“Eleanor,”* the voice on the other end said, echoing both from the phone and faintly through the rain from the idling SUV. *“I suggest you tell the troopers to stand down. Because if you send Patricia and Robert to prison tonight, the documents revealing what really happened to your late son twenty years ago will be delivered to every news agency in the country by midnight.”*
Grandma’s breath caught in her throat, her eyes widening in pure horror as the phone connection abruptly clicked dead.
