Chapter 22 - The Ghost Alibi
We reached the abandoned lumber mill off Route 9 twenty minutes before three in the morning.
The cold was brutal. Without a rear windshield, the interior of the truck had dropped to near-zero temperatures, freezing the sweat and soot to our skin. But neither Ethan nor I cared. As soon as the truck rolled into the rusted corrugated warehouse, I saw the tail lights of a dark blue sedan.
The back door of the sedan opened, and Marcus stepped out, holding a bundle wrapped in a pink fleece blanket.
"Lily!" I sobbed, tumbling out of the truck before it had even come to a complete stop.
My daughter was asleep, her small face warm and flushed against the fleece, completely unaware that forty minutes ago her parents had nearly been incinerated in a coordinated assassination attempt. I pulled her into my arms, pressing my face into her hair, smelling the sweet, innocent scent of baby shampoo against the suffocating stink of smoke that clung to my jacket.
"She didn't hear a thing, Claire," Marcus said softly, resting a comforting hand on my trembling shoulder. "We had the cartoons playing on the iPad the whole way here."
Ethan walked up behind me. He wrapped his arms around both of us, resting his chin on the crown of my head. His chest rose and fell in deep, shuddering breaths. For the first time since Christmas dinner—since his mother had struck me across the face and called our child garbage—I felt the tension in his muscles shift from defensive panic to calculated lethality.
"Check the news channels," Ethan commanded quietly, not letting go of us.
Marcus pulled out a tablet and tapped the screen. A local emergency broadcast immediately flickered to life.
A female reporter stood outside the iron gates of Whispering Pines, the flashing red and blue lights of twenty fire engines illuminating the thick plume of black smoke behind her.
*"...breaking news out of Medina County, where a massive explosion has leveled the primary residence of the historic Medina estate just after two in the morning. Authorities are currently battling secondary fires across the western wing. Unconfirmed reports indicate that several individuals may have been inside the structure when the explosion occurred. Victoria Medina-Carter, who was attending an emergency board meeting in downtown Chicago, is reportedly en route to the scene, accompanied by her legal counsel..."*
"Look at her," Richard spat, pointing a trembling finger at the bottom ticker. "She’s already releasing a statement of 'profound grief' to the press. She timed her Chicago alibi down to the minute. She thinks she wiped us off the map."
"She thinks she owns the board now," Ethan said. His voice was completely devoid of emotion, a cold, terrifying monotone that sent a chill straight down my spine. "Without me to challenge the trust succession, and with Richard presumed dead or implicated in the gas leak, the entire estate and the offshore liquid accounts default to her sole signature at noon."
"What do we do?" I asked, holding Lily tighter against my chest. "Do we call the state police? We have Richard. We have the ledger."
Ethan looked down at the blackened ledger sitting on the hood of Marcus's car. He slowly turned the pages, revealing decades of handwritten bank transfers, shell company registrations, and private autopsy reports that had been buried twenty years ago.
"The police won't touch her until the board confirms the asset transfer," Ethan replied, his eyes dark and merciless. "Victoria bought the county prosecutor fifteen years ago. If we walk into a precinct right now, the paperwork will disappear before it hits the detective’s desk."
He reached out, his thumb gently wiping a smudge of soot from my cheek.
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"She wants a tragedy?" Ethan whispered, a cold, predatory smile finally touching his lips. "We’ll give her a funeral. And then, we’ll attend it."
***
