I leaned back.
“How long have you two planned this?”
Mark’s chair scraped the floor.
“What did you do?”
I smiled.
“Nothing.”
His eyes moved toward the window.
Then the hallway.
Then the papers.
A guilty man calculating exits.
Daniel said quietly, “Dad, Mom asked you a question.”
Mark turned on him.
“You have no idea what you’re involved in.”
“I know my wife was involved with you before she married me.”
Jenna gasped.
Daniel continued.
“I know Elaine Mercer was your partner.”
Mark’s face emptied.
And from behind me, a woman’s voice said:
“And I know what you did in 1999.”
Rebecca stepped into the dining room.
The wineglass slipped from Mark’s hand.
It shattered.
For perhaps five seconds, nobody moved.
Mark stared at my sister as if the dead had
risen before him.
“No,” he whispered.
Rebecca smiled.
“Hello, Mark.”
Jenna looked from her to him.
“What is happening?”
Mark backed away.
“You’re dead.”
“Apparently not.”
Then something unexpected happened.
Jenna screamed at Mark.
“You said she was dead!”
The room froze.
Daniel stared at her.
“You knew about Rebecca?”
Jenna began crying.
“No. Not exactly. He told me there was a woman years ago who stole documents and died. He never told me she was your aunt.”
Mark lunged for the folder on the table.
Daniel blocked him.
Mark shoved Daniel into the wall.
And the investigators entered.
“Mark Bell! Don’t move!”
But Mark ran.
Straight through the back door.
And Jenna—
to our astonishment—
ran after him.
—
PART 6 — THE LODGE BURNED BEFORE MIDNIGHT
We knew exactly where they were going.
The abandoned lodge.
The evidence.
Daniel insisted on coming.
So did Rebecca.
Police were already moving toward
the property, but Mark had a ten-minute lead.
That was enough.
By the time we reached the mountain road, smoke was rising above the trees.
“Jesus,” Daniel whispered.
The lodge was burning.
Flames climbed through the back windows.
Mark stood near the entrance carrying a metal box.
Jenna was screaming at him.
“You said nobody would get hurt!”
Mark shouted, “Get in the car!”
“No!”
“You’re already involved!”
“I didn’t agree to murder anyone!”
Daniel flinched.
I heard it too.
Murder.
Rebecca gripped my arm.
Police vehicles appeared behind us.
Mark saw the lights.
Then he did something desperate.
He threw the metal box into the fire.
Rebecca screamed.
“No!”
She ran.
I grabbed her coat.
“Rebecca!”
“That box has the ledgers!”
Daniel and I pulled her back as part of the roof collapsed.
Mark tried to reach his car.
Two officers tackled him.
Jenna dropped to her knees in
the mud.
And everything seemed over.
But it wasn’t.
Because the metal box Mark threw into the fire—
was empty.
Rebecca stared at it once firefighters recovered it.
Then she began laughing.
Mark, handcuffed beside the police car, looked confused.
She walked toward him.
“You never found them.”
Mark’s face changed.
“What?”
“The records.”
Her smile widened.
