Chapter 10 - The West Balcony
Nobody knew who had been shot.
Daniel moved first.
Security followed.
Annie grabbed Evelyn before she could run upstairs.
“That's what they want.”
“My father—”
“Is beside you.”
Evelyn turned.
Charles was safe.
Adrian too.
The gunshot had come from the west wing.
Police surrounded the house.
Lucy appeared on the balcony.
She held no gun.
Her hands were raised.
“I didn't fire!”
Daniel approached carefully.
“Lucy.”
She began crying.
“Robert said he'd kill you.”
Daniel froze.
Lucy had not been working willingly.
Robert had blackmailed her using Daniel.
She had planted photographs and staged thefts.
But she claimed she never intended anyone to be physically harmed.
“Where's the gun?” Daniel asked.
“I don't know.”
“Who fired?”
“Robert.”
Everyone turned.
Robert Hale stepped from Catherine's bedroom.
He held the gun.
The charming executive was gone.
“Thirteen years,” he said. “And this family still refuses to die quietly.”
Police ordered him to drop the weapon.
Robert grabbed Lucy.
Daniel raised his hands.
“Let her go.”
Robert laughed.
“Your father was more useful.”
He dragged Lucy toward the balcony.
Evelyn stared at the place where her mother had died.
Something in her changed.
She stepped forward.
“Robert.”
“Stay back.”
“You wanted me afraid.”
Robert looked at her.
“For years.”
“You made me think everyone was betraying me.”
“It wasn't difficult.”
The cruelty of that sentence struck her.
Evelyn did not break.
“You still lost.”
Robert's expression tightened.
“Did I?”
“You needed me isolated. I'm not.”
Behind Evelyn stood Annie.
Charles.
Adrian.
Margaret.
Even employees Evelyn had once terrified.
Robert saw them.
His confidence flickered.
Daniel used the distraction.
He lunged.
The gun fired.
Glass shattered.
Police rushed forward.
Robert went down.
Lucy escaped.
Nobody had been hit.
Robert was arrested.
It should have ended there.
It didn't.
Because the stolen evidence remained missing.
And without it, prosecutors had limited proof connecting Robert directly to Catherine's death.
Robert knew it.
As police led him away, he smiled at Charles.
“You'll never prove what happened.”
Annie watched him.
Then she looked toward the broken balcony glass.
A bullet had struck the wall.
Behind the damaged plaster was something metallic.
She approached.
A small black box had been hidden inside the wall.
Daniel recognized it.
“Old security recorder.”
Catherine had said Daniel would be nearby the night she confronted Robert.
Maybe he had recorded it.
They removed the device.
Thirteen years of dust covered it.
A technician recovered one surviving audio file.
Catherine's voice.
Robert's voice.
An argument.
Then Robert said:
“You should have kept your mouth shut.”
Catherine answered:
“If I fall tonight, Charles will know.”
Robert laughed.
“No. He'll blame himself.”
A struggle followed.
Catherine screamed.
Then silence.
Evelyn collapsed into Annie's arms.
Charles wept.
The truth had finally spoken.
But Daniel kept listening.
“There’s more.”
Another man's voice appeared.
Frank Ross.
“She's still breathing.”
Then Robert:
“Then finish it.”
Everyone went still.
Footsteps.
Catherine gasping.
And then Daniel's younger voice shouting from a distance.
The recording stopped.
Robert hadn't merely caused Catherine's fall.
She had survived it.
Someone had killed her afterward.
Daniel looked horrified.
“My father.”
Police reopened the entire case.
But Frank Ross was dead.
Robert now faced overwhelming evidence.
Still, one question remained.
Where were the original financial records?
The following morning, Annie found a package outside her bedroom.
No postage.
No name.
Inside was Catherine's missing ledger.
And a note.
Robert wasn't the last one.
Annie turned the paper over.
May you like
One name was written on the back.
CHARLES WHITMORE.
