Chapter 6 - What Victoria Was Protecting
Chief Johnson returned home without warning.
Victoria was still in the office.
Annabelle stood beside the open safe.
Neither had time to invent a story.
Chief Johnson placed Ledger 43 on the desk.
Victoria’s face collapsed.
“You found it.”
“Yes.”
Annabelle looked between them.
“Found what?”
Victoria sat down.
For the first time, the elegant woman seemed old.
She told the truth.
Her father had stolen from the Johnson Foundation.
When Evelyn discovered it, Victoria helped conceal records because she believed exposing him would destroy her family.
She had been young.
Afraid.
And wrong.
Years later, guilt had become habit.
Habit had become secrecy.
Chief Johnson asked why she was searching his office now.
Victoria looked at Annabelle.
“Because I received a letter.”
“What letter?”
Victoria retrieved it.
Someone had threatened to expose the old scandal unless she transferred money.
She had paid twice.
Then the demands increased.
She believed Chief Johnson had discovered the payments and was changing the family trust.
So she manipulated Annabelle into stealing his access card.
Annabelle stared at her mother.
“You told me Dad was giving everything away.”
“I was trying to keep you from asking questions.”
“You used me.”
Victoria looked down.
“Yes.”
For once, Annabelle had nothing cruel to say.
Chief Johnson contacted investigators and attorneys.
The blackmail messages were preserved.
Accounts were traced.
But Alice remained troubled.
Evelyn had been framed decades ago.
Victoria had hidden the truth.
Yet someone new was using that secret now.
Who?
The answer came from an unexpected place.
Daniel.
He remembered seeing a man repeatedly near the mansion service entrance.
Not an employee.
Not a delivery driver.
Alice asked for security footage.
The man appeared three times.
Evelyn recognized him.
“Samuel Cole.”
Margaret gasped.
Evelyn’s son.
Alice stared.
The same man had helped operate the fake employment agency.
Samuel had grown up believing the Johnson family destroyed his mother.
He discovered pieces of the old scandal and decided to use them.
Evelyn looked shattered.
“I never told him everything.”
“Then he invented the rest,” Chief Johnson said.
Samuel believed Chief Johnson had knowingly protected Victoria’s father.
He wanted revenge.
Money was only part of it.
He wanted the Johnson family publicly destroyed.
And Alice?
Samuel had chosen Alice because she was Margaret’s granddaughter.
He knew Margaret possessed something connected to Ledger 43.
Alice had been placed in the mansion as an unwitting bridge between both families.
Evelyn called him.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then Alice’s phone buzzed.
A message.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT THIS TO END.
Below it was a photograph.
Samuel standing beside Alice’s university campus.
Alice stared at the image.
Another message arrived.
I KNOW WHAT YOU WANT MOST.
Then a third.
MIDNIGHT. OLD FOUNDATION BUILDING.
Chief Johnson immediately said, “You’re not going.”
Alice looked at the messages.
“He expects me.”
“Exactly.”
Alice raised her eyes.
“He also thinks I’m still the easiest person in this story to control.”
Chief Johnson recognized the expression.
It was the same calm determination she had shown when Annabelle raised her hand.
At 11:58 p.m., Alice stood outside the old foundation building.
Chief Johnson and investigators waited out of sight.
Alice reached for the basement door.
Before she touched it, the lock clicked.
The door opened from inside.
May you like
Samuel Cole stood in the darkness.
And behind him was Annabelle.
