Chapter 9 - The Chase
They made it out the rear door three seconds before a man entered the laundromat from the front.
Mia grabbed Rachel's hand.
"Car."
"I'm eight months pregnant. I don't sprint."
"Today you do."
They hurried through an alley while Rosa followed, breathing hard.
Behind them, the back door slammed open.
"Stop!"
Mia looked over her shoulder. "Definitely not."
They reached her car.
Rachel got into the passenger seat while Rosa climbed into the back. Mia pulled away as the black SUV shot around the corner.
"Call Castillo," Rachel said.
Rosa already was.
Mia turned onto a crowded avenue.
The SUV stayed behind them.
"He's still there," Rosa said.
"I see him."
"Don't do anything stupid," Rachel warned.
Mia glanced at her. "That is a deeply unfair request from someone who snuck out of a guarded mansion."
Despite everything, Rachel laughed once.
The SUV accelerated.
Mia did not race it. She drove straight toward a police precinct three blocks away.
The SUV slowed.
Then turned down a side street and vanished.
Twenty minutes later, Detective Castillo stood in the precinct lobby listening to Rosa's recording with headphones.
When it ended, she removed them carefully.
"This changes things."
Rachel folded her arms. "Enough to stop Vanessa?"
"Enough to get warrants moving faster. Not enough to assume she acted alone."
Rosa nodded. "She didn't."
Castillo looked at her.
Rosa took a folded sheet from her coat pocket.
"I copied this before I left the house."
It was a payment ledger.
Monthly transfers went to Gwen Mercer.
Larger payments went to Grant Bell.
One name appeared only once.
David Hawthorne.
Jason's dead father.
Mia stared at it.
"Dad?"
The payment was dated two days before David died.
Rachel looked at Rosa. "What was it for?"
"I don't know."
Mia's face had gone pale.
"Dad died after he fell at the lake house. Mom said he was alone."
Castillo took the paper.
"Was there an investigation?"
"Barely," Mia said. "It was called an accident."
Rachel saw something shift in her sister-in-law's expression.
"Mia?"
Mia whispered, "Dad called me the night before he died."
"What did he say?"
May you like
She looked at Rachel.
"He said, 'If your mother finds out what I found, she'll destroy all of us.'"
