Chapter 13 - The House With Blue Shutters
Emily ran before anyone could stop her.
Brooks caught her halfway up the cliff stairs.
“Emily!”
“My mother!”
“We have agents there.”
“They said under fire!”
“And you running into bullets will not help her.”
Emily shoved him.
It did nothing.
He held her shoulders.
“Listen to me. We go together. In armored vehicles. With a plan.”
Emily’s voice broke.
“That’s my mom.”
Brooks softened for one second.
“I know.”
Ava limped up behind them.
“Then move.”
They moved.
The drive back felt longer than Emily’s entire life.
Richard stayed on the phone.
Arthur had been suspended.
Vanessa remained in federal custody.
Linda Carver had been arrested in the Harrison Tower garage.
But none of it mattered.
Not while Susan Parker was trapped in a house with men who worked for Arthur Bell.
When they reached Lakewood, the quiet neighborhood was lit red and blue.
Police cars lined the street.
Neighbors stood behind tape in robes and raincoats.
Emily saw her mother’s house.
Blue shutters.
Garden in the back.
Front window shattered.
Her body tried to run again.
Ava grabbed her hand.
Brooks spoke with the tactical lead, then returned.
“Two suspects inside. Your mother is believed alive in the upstairs bedroom.”
“Believed?”
“Emily—”
“Believed?”
His silence was unbearable.
A loudspeaker boomed.
“This is the FBI. Release the hostage and exit with your hands visible.”
No answer.
Emily stared at the house where she had grown up.
Where her father carried Christmas trees through the front door.
Where her mother made pancakes every Sunday.
Where grief had sat with them for twelve years like a third family member.
Now Arthur’s violence had entered it.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A video call.
Brooks saw it.
“Answer. Keep him talking.”
Emily answered.
Arthur Bell appeared on screen.
He was inside a vehicle.
Calm.
Untouched.
Not arrested.
Of course not.
“Emily,” he said. “You found the lake.”
Emily’s voice shook with rage.
“You lost.”
Arthur smiled.
“Did I?”
“The board suspended you.”
“Boards can unsuspend. Evidence can be challenged. Recordings can be called fabricated. But mothers…”
He tilted his head.
“Mothers are fragile.”
Emily nearly dropped the phone.
Brooks signaled for trace.
Arthur continued.
“I want the original documents.”
“The FBI has them.”
“You have Thomas’s letter.”
Emily looked at her bag.
Arthur’s eyes sharpened.
“Yes. I know you kept it.”
Emily’s blood chilled.
“I want it burned.”
“Why?”
“For sentimental reasons.”
“No. What’s in it?”
Arthur’s smile faded.
Emily realized the letter contained something he feared.
Not the obvious accusations.
Something else.
She replayed the words in her mind.
Find the people who are still capable of shame.
Shame.
Who?
Richard.
Margaret.
Vanessa?
A young woman named Vanessa Cole delivered documents to Arthur. She knew enough to be afraid.
Emily looked up.
Vanessa had been afraid.
Then ambitious.
Maybe she had not started as Arthur’s weapon.
Maybe she had been his witness.
Arthur said, “Burn the letter on video, and your mother walks out.”
Emily whispered, “You’re afraid of Vanessa.”
For the first time, Arthur’s face went blank.
Emily knew she had hit blood.
“She knows what happened to my father.”
Arthur said softly, “Vanessa knows what I allow her to know.”
“No. She knows enough.”
Arthur leaned closer to the camera.
“Vanessa Cole will save herself. She will trade lies for mercy. She will bury you, Richard, and your dead father if it buys her one less year in prison.”
Emily said, “Then why are you scared?”
He smiled again.
But it did not reach his eyes.
A gunshot cracked from inside the house.
Emily screamed.
The line cut.
Tactical agents surged forward.
Smoke burst through the front door.
The next sixty seconds happened in flashes.
Shouts.
Breaking glass.
A man dragged out in handcuffs.
Another on the lawn, wounded.
Paramedics running.
Then an agent appeared at the door with Susan Parker in his arms.
Emily broke through the police line.
This time, nobody stopped her.
“Mom!”
Susan was pale, bruised, but alive.
Emily dropped beside the stretcher and grabbed her hand.
Her mother opened her eyes.
“Emmy.”
Emily sobbed.
“I’m here.”
Susan squeezed weakly.
“He wanted your father’s letter.”
“I know.”
“No,” Susan whispered. “Not because of Vanessa.”
Emily froze.
Susan’s eyes filled with tears.
“Because your father named the person who helped him make the copies.”
Emily leaned closer.
“Who?”
Susan swallowed.
Before she could answer, Richard arrived, breathless, rain-soaked, devastated.
Susan looked at him.
May you like
And Emily understood.
Her mother whispered, “Richard helped your father.”
