Chapter 8 - THE WOMEN CHARLES HARRINGTON COULD NOT CONTROLGeneva was covered in rain when Adrian’s plane landed.
Federal authorities knew he was there.
Swiss authorities knew.
Charles Harrington did not know that everyone knew.
That was the advantage.
The disadvantage was that Charles had survived for decades by assuming everyone eventually betrayed everyone else.
He changed the meeting location three times.
A private bank.
A hotel garage.
An abandoned lakeside estate.
Finally, instructions arrived.
Adrian was to enter a warehouse near the French border at midnight.
No security.
No phone.
No tracking devices.
Mara read the message.
“He thinks this is a movie.”
Adrian adjusted his coat.
“He’s seventy-six and has spent half his life pretending to be dead. He may be entitled to some theatricality.”
“You’re joking.”
“Stress response.”
“I hate it.”
“So do I.”
Mara was not supposed to be in Switzerland.
Adrian had argued against it.
She came anyway.
Diane was her family.
Margaret also arrived.
Adrian saw his mother for the first time in thirty years inside a secure apartment.
Mara waited in another room.
She heard no shouting.
That somehow made it sadder.
When Adrian emerged twenty minutes later, his eyes were red.
Margaret followed.
She was thin, elegant and gray-haired.
Adrian resembled her around the eyes.
Margaret approached Mara slowly.
Mara did not hug her.
Margaret did not try.
“You look like Eleanor.”
“So everybody keeps telling me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For which part?”
“All of it.”
Mara nodded.
“That’s a big apology.”
“It should be.”
They got to work.
Charles had demanded the original trust deed and Adrian’s signature transferring a thirty-one-percent voting stake in Vale Meridian.
He would exchange Diane.
At least that was the promise.
Nobody believed him.
Swiss tactical police placed surveillance teams around the warehouse perimeter.
Adrian wore no wire because Charles would scan him.
Instead, the trust documents contained a paper-thin transmitter.
Midnight.
Adrian entered.
Charles Harrington stood beneath a hanging industrial light.
For a supposedly dead man, he looked remarkably healthy.
Diane sat nearby.
Her hair was white.
Bruising darkened one cheek.
When Adrian entered, she looked toward him.
“Where’s Mara?”
Charles slapped the back of her chair.
“Quiet.”
Adrian stopped.
“Let her go.”
Charles smiled.
“You look like Richard.”
“I’m told that less often lately.”
Charles laughed.
“I always liked your father.”
“You blackmailed him.”
“That doesn’t mean I disliked him.”
Adrian placed the document case on a table.
“Trust deed.”
“And transfer?”
“Inside.”
Charles opened it.
He scanned the papers.
“Where’s the microfilm?”
“Embedded in the deed.”
Charles smiled.
“Excellent.”
“Diane.”
Charles glanced at her.
“She’ll leave when I verify everything.”
Diane suddenly said, “He’ll kill me either way.”
Charles sighed.
“Family pessimism.”
Adrian’s gaze never left him.
“You failed.”
Charles looked amused.
“How?”
“Celeste is cooperating.”
His smile weakened.
“She’s emotional.”
“Your ledgers are with federal investigators.”
“Partial records.”
“Thomas Reed survived.”
Charles’s eyes hardened.
“I did not push Thomas.”
Adrian believed him.
That meant someone else remained.
“Who did?”
Charles said nothing.
Diane answered.
“I did.”
Adrian stared.
Diane looked at the floor.
“I escaped the clinic for six hours before Charles found me. Thomas was going to reveal where I was.”
Mara, listening from the surveillance room, felt sick.
Her aunt had pushed him.
Not Charles.
Diane continued.
“I didn’t mean to kill him. I panicked.”
Charles smiled.
“You see? Everyone disappoints you eventually.”
Diane turned on him.
“Not Eleanor.”
The smile vanished.
“No,” Diane said. “That was what you hated about her.”
Charles stepped toward her.
“She betrayed her family.”
“She refused to become us.”
“You made choices too.”
“Yes.”
Diane’s voice broke.
“I made every choice you wanted because I was terrified of losing money, status, you. And then my sister died because I was too much of a coward to pull her from that car.”
Charles’s face hardened.
“I saved you.”
“No.”
Diane looked up.
“You saved yourself.”
Charles raised his hand.
Adrian moved.
“Touch her and the deal ends.”
Charles looked at him.
“You care about this woman?”
“No.”
Diane flinched.
Adrian continued.
“But Mara does, whether she wants to or not. And I care about Mara.”
In the surveillance room, Mara froze.
Margaret looked at her.
Mara stared fiercely at the monitor.
“Not now.”
Margaret almost smiled.
Inside the warehouse, Charles noticed the implication too.
“Interesting.”
“Don’t.”
“The maid.”
Adrian’s expression turned lethal.
“Her name is Mara.”
Charles smiled again.
“Richard would hate this.”
“My father is dead.”
“Yes. Convenient.”
Charles removed a pistol.
Police immediately prepared to breach.
Adrian did not move.
Charles held the weapon loosely.
“Your father spent his life trying to become a moral man after discovering he wasn’t one.”
Adrian said, “Most men never make the attempt.”
“He failed.”
“Maybe.”
“You’ll fail too.”
“Probably.”
Charles frowned.
Adrian continued.
“But failing after trying is still better than becoming proud of your rot.”
The insult landed.
Charles pointed the gun at him.
Diane screamed.
Police moved.
Before they entered, another voice echoed from above.
“Put it down, Charles.”
Margaret Vale stepped onto a metal walkway.
Adrian stared.
She was not supposed to be inside.
Charles looked stunned.
“Margaret.”
Thirty years of hatred passed between them.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
“So are you.”
Charles laughed.
“We were always alike.”
“No.”
Margaret descended slowly.
“We were both afraid. The difference is that I eventually stopped letting fear choose for me.”
Charles aimed at her.
Adrian stepped between them.
“Move.”
“No.”
Mara watched everything through the monitor.
Then Diane started laughing.
Charles turned.
“What?”
“You still don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“The deed.”
Charles glanced down.
Diane smiled through swollen lips.
“It’s useless.”
His face changed.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Then what?”
“The list isn’t in the deed.”
Adrian frowned.
Margaret stared at Diane.
Diane looked toward the hidden camera as though she knew Mara was watching.
“Eleanor never trusted any of you.”
Mara stood.
Diane continued.
“She moved the list before she died.”
“Where?” Charles demanded.
Diane smiled.
“To the one person nobody would ever search.”
Charles’s face drained.
Mara whispered, “Me.”
Diane nodded toward the camera.
“She put it in Mara’s childhood records.”
Charles pointed the pistol at Diane.
The tactical team breached.
Chaos erupted.
Charles fired once.
Adrian pulled Diane sideways.
The shot struck metal.
Police shouted.
Charles spun.
Margaret ducked.
A second shot rang out.
Then Charles collapsed.
Alive.
Wounded in the shoulder.
Officers surrounded him.
Adrian knelt beside Diane.
“You okay?”
She stared toward the camera.
“Tell Mara I’m sorry.”
Mara left the surveillance room.
She walked into the warehouse despite officers trying to stop her.
Diane saw her.
For twenty-five years Mara had imagined what she would say to someone responsible for her mother’s death.
She expected rage.
Instead she felt exhausted.
Diane whispered, “You have her eyes.”
Mara stopped several feet away.
“My mother went back for Margaret.”
“Yes.”
“She tried to save you too.”
Diane began crying.
“Yes.”
“And you left her.”
“Yes.”
Mara’s throat tightened.
“I can understand being afraid.”
Diane looked hopeful.
Then Mara finished.
“I cannot pretend fear erases what you did.”
The hope disappeared.
“I know.”
“You’ll testify.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll tell everything.”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll accept whatever happens after that.”
Diane closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Mara nodded.
“That is the first thing you can do for my mother.”
Across the warehouse, Charles screamed that they had won nothing.
Mara turned toward him.
He was handcuffed, bleeding and furious.
“The list is gone!” he shouted.
Mara studied him.
“No.”
She suddenly remembered a box stored in her elementary-school district archive.
Permanent student records.
Her mother had insisted on placing something inside an emergency-contact envelope.
Mara had always assumed it was medical paperwork.
She looked at Adrian.
May you like
“I know where it is.”
For the first time, Charles Harrington looked truly afraid.
