Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN IN THE VERMONT HOUSE
I did not go to Vermont alone.
I also did not go with an army.
Amelia.
Daniel.
One investigator.
That was it.
The house sat outside Brattleboro.
White siding.
Vegetable garden.
A blue bicycle near the porch.
My heart hurt before we even knocked.
A woman opened the door.
Sixty.
Gray beginning at the temples.
My mother’s eyes.
I stopped breathing.
“Mom?”
She covered her mouth.
I had imagined this moment for fifteen years without knowing I was imagining it.
Then anger arrived before joy.
Good.
“Are you alive?”
Terrible question.
She laughed and cried.
“Yes.”
I stepped backward.
“You let me bury you.”
Her face broke.
“I know.”
“You let me think you were dead for fifteen years.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She looked at Daniel.
Then at me.
“Because Peter killed Thomas.”
Daniel went still.
My mother continued.
“He tried to kill me too.”
She invited us inside.
I did not hug her.
Not yet.
Sarah Carter had suffered a real cardiac episode fifteen years earlier.
Peter used the hospitalization.
He had a contact alter records.
A Jane Doe died the same night.
Identity switch.
Sarah learned what was happening from a nurse who recognized the falsified paperwork.
She ran.
Rebecca helped.
Why not take me?
That question hurt before I asked.
“Because Peter knew where you were.”
“That makes no sense.”
“If I disappeared with you, he would follow.”
“So you left me?”
“I thought making you legally orphaned removed your value.”
I stared.
“Instead he spent years manipulating me.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled.
“I was wrong.”
Important.
No excuse.
No “I had no choice.”
Wrong.
I sat.
“So why stay gone after Peter stopped looking?”
“He didn’t.”
She showed us photographs.
Men outside my college.
My first apartment.
Maple Street.
Jason.
My stomach turned.
She had been watching me too.
From distance.
Different intention.
Same violation.
“You should have told me.”
“Yes.”
“Years ago.”
“Yes.”
Daniel watched silently.
Then Sarah looked at him.
“You look like Thomas.”
His face changed.
“You knew my father?”
“Very well.”
“Did Peter kill him?”
“Yes.”
“Proof?”
Sarah nodded.
Good.
Evidence.
She brought out a locked box.
Inside:
Original tunnel ledgers.
Photographs.
Audio.
One recording captured Peter Sloan arranging Thomas Brooks’s harbor shooting through a corrupt police contact.
Daniel listened.
His entire body became still.
I reached toward him.
Stopped.
“Can I?”
He looked at my hand.
Then nodded.
I held it.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Human.
Then Sarah told us why she finally resurfaced.
Peter had contacted her.
Three weeks earlier.
He found Vermont.
Threatened Emily.
So she sent information to Daniel’s security.
Wait.
Daniel looked up.
“To my security?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Michael Trent.”
Daniel’s chief lieutenant.
His most trusted man.
Daniel went cold.
“I never received anything.”
Sarah frowned.
“I sent everything.”
Silence.
Then Daniel’s phone rang.
Michael Trent.
Daniel stared at the screen.
Answered.
Michael said:
“Boss, where are you?”
Daniel’s eyes hardened.
“Vermont.”
Long pause.
Then:
“You shouldn’t be there.”
Daniel looked at me.
And we both understood.
May you like
The traitor was not only inside Peter’s circle.
He was inside Daniel’s.
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