Chapter 28 - The Unravelling Web
By midday, the federal prosecutor’s office had filed twenty-two counts of wire fraud, attempted murder, and corporate conspiracy against Julian Vance and Dr. Harrison Keller. Eleanor remained in isolation at the detention facility, refusing to utter a single word without her full defense team present.
I returned to St. Jude’s Memorial with an armed federal escort. Emma was sitting up in bed, eating a bowl of strawberry ice cream, her cheeks flushed with healthy color. When she saw me, her face lit up, and she held out her small arms.
"Mommy! The doctor said my heart doesn't make the scary thumping noise anymore!" she chirped, wrapping her arms around my neck as I buried my face in her hair, crying silent, burning tears of gratitude and grief.
"I know, baby," I whispered against her cheek. "You're all better. You don't ever have to take those drops again."
"Auntie Chloe came by while you were gone," Emma said casually, scraping her plastic spoon against the bowl.
My heart stopped. My grip on her shoulders tightened slightly. "What did you say?"
"Auntie Chloe was here. Before lunch," Emma replied, her wide hazel eyes looking into mine with absolute innocence. "She wore a big sun hat and sunglasses. She gave me this."
Emma reached under her pillow and pulled out a small, plush velvet jewelry pouch.
I slowly took the pouch from her hands, my pulse thundering in my ears. I uncinched the golden cord and tipped the contents onto the white hospital blanket.
Out fell Eleanor’s family heirloom: the three-hundred-year-old sapphire signet ring that had belonged to our great-grandmother—the very ring Eleanor had promised to present to Chloe at the engagement dinner.
Wrapped around the band of the ring was a handwritten strip of paper torn from a flight manifest:
*Flight 409 to Geneva boards at 6:00 PM. The Zurich consortium doesn't stop because Julian was arrested, Lauren. Julian was just the collector. The board of directors is meeting tonight to authorize an asset recovery team. They don't want the money back—they want the thumb drive you found in box 714. If they find it in your hands, Emma will never leave this hospital alive.*
May you like
I turned the paper over. On the back were four coordinates and a single instruction:
*Burn the files. Take the twelve million. Get on the 5:15 ferry to Nantucket. If you hand those files to the FBI, you sign your own death warrant.*
