Chapter 17 - Blood in the LibraryThe gunshot came from the east library.
For one second, everyone in the hidden room stopped breathing.
Then Bennett ran.
Amelia grabbed the recorder and followed despite Detective Quinn shouting her name.
They reached the nursery door as a second shot cracked through the house.
The library smelled of smoke.
Books had fallen from shelves. Glass from a shattered lamp covered the floor. An officer lay near the doorway clutching his shoulder, alive but bleeding. Victoria crouched behind the desk, white-faced, holding Eleanor’s hand.
Eleanor had blood on her sleeve.
Not hers.
Across the room stood Charles Ashford with a gun in one hand and Lydia beside him, her perfect gray coat damp from rain. Between them and the door stood Caroline Mercer.
The missing aunt had come home.
She was older than the passport photo, sharper in person, with Eleanor’s eyes and none of Eleanor’s softness. A red scarf hung around her neck like a confession.
Charles smiled when he saw Amelia.
“There she is,” he said. “The billion-dollar bride.”
Bennett stepped in front of her. “Put the gun down.”
Charles looked almost bored. “I am tired of you standing in front of her.”
Lydia’s eyes moved over Bennett’s face. “You always did that, even as a baby.”
Bennett’s expression turned lethal. “You remember?”
“Of course,” Lydia said. “You screamed when we separated you.”
Eleanor made a wounded sound.
Caroline snapped, “Lydia, shut up.”
But Lydia smiled. “Why? We are finally being honest.”
Amelia stepped beside Bennett.
Charles’s gun shifted toward her.
“Careful,” he said.
Amelia did not move back.
“You needed me alive,” she said. “That’s what the note meant.”
“For a while,” Charles replied. “The value of an asset changes when it becomes inconvenient.”
Detective Quinn entered behind Amelia, weapon raised. “Charles Ashford, drop the gun.”
Lydia laughed. “Detective, this house has survived better threats than you.”
Quinn’s eyes did not move. “Maybe. But you haven’t.”
Caroline lifted both hands. “Charles, it’s over. The files are already copied.”
Charles’s smile twitched.
“You always were stupid enough to mistake paperwork for power.”
Caroline looked at Eleanor. “I tried to warn you once.”
Eleanor’s eyes filled. “And I should have listened.”
For a moment, Caroline’s face cracked.
Just a little.
Then Charles fired.
The shot hit Caroline in the side.
Eleanor screamed.
Bennett tackled Amelia to the floor as Detective Quinn fired back. Charles ducked behind the shelves. Lydia ran toward the hidden nursery door.
Amelia saw her.
So did Ruth, who had entered the doorway behind the agents despite everyone’s orders to stay away.
Lydia reached the nursery.
Ruth stepped into her path.
“You,” Lydia hissed.
Ruth’s frail hand lifted.
And she slapped Lydia so hard the sound cut through the gun smoke.
“This is for the empty grave,” Ruth said.
Lydia lunged at her.
Amelia moved without thinking, grabbing Lydia’s coat and pulling her backward. The two women crashed into the wall. Lydia fought like someone half her age, nails scraping Amelia’s cheek.
“You ruined everything,” Lydia snarled.
Amelia held on. “No. I survived it.”
Bennett disarmed Charles in a brutal struggle near the fireplace. Quinn pinned him down, cuffing him as he cursed Arthur, Eleanor, Ruth, Caroline, the twins, everyone but himself.
Lydia was dragged away screaming.
Caroline lay on the floor, blood spreading beneath her red scarf.
Eleanor crawled to her sister.
“Carrie,” she sobbed, using a childhood name no one else knew.
Caroline coughed. “Don’t make this sentimental.”
Eleanor pressed both hands to the wound. “Stay with me.”
Caroline looked past her at Amelia.
“The recorder,” she whispered.
Amelia knelt beside her. “I have it.”
“There’s more.” Caroline’s voice shook. “Not just trust files. Names. Judges. Doctors. Police. Everyone Charles bought.”
Detective Quinn leaned close. “Where?”
Caroline smiled faintly.
“In the one place he never looked.”
Her eyes moved to Bennett.
“Your adoption Bible.”
Bennett froze.
Eleanor looked confused. “The Bible from his christening?”
Caroline nodded weakly. “Arthur gave it before he died. Lydia hid microfilm in the spine. She thought Charles would never touch anything from the ceremony he staged.”
Lydia, cuffed near the door, went silent.
That silence confirmed it.
Caroline gripped Eleanor’s hand.
“I hated you,” she whispered.
Eleanor cried harder. “I know.”
“But I hated myself more.”
Then Caroline closed her eyes.
An ambulance siren wailed outside.
Amelia stood, blood on her cheek, jade pendant against her chest, and looked at Charles Ashford being dragged through the house he had poisoned for nearly three decades.
For the first time, he looked afraid.
May you like
Not of prison.
Of exposure.
