Chapter 5 - THE CONFESSION NOTE
The silver sedan’s headlights cut through the fading evening light, illuminating the dust swirling around my SUV.
I didn’t breathe. I didn’t blink. I stared at the barrel of the handgun resting on Mrs. Collins’s steering wheel. She wasn't pointing it at us, but the threat was unmistakable. The fifth-grade teacher who had cruelly poured my daughter’s water away was now tracking us down with a firearm.
“Mom?” Grace whispered, her voice tight with terror. “Is that my teacher?”
“Get down, Grace. Don't look up,” I commanded, my hand dropping to the gearshift. If she raised the gun, I was going to ram her car head-on.
But Mrs. Collins didn’t raise the weapon. Instead, she slowly opened her car door. She stepped out, leaving the gun on the dashboard. She held her hands up in the air, empty, palms facing me.
She looked entirely broken. Her cardigan was buttoned wrong, her hair was a tangled mess, and mascara tracked deep black lines down her pale cheeks.
She walked slowly toward my driver's side window.
I kept my foot on the brake, the car in drive, ready to bolt. I cracked the window exactly one inch.
“Karen,” Mrs. Collins sobbed, her voice trembling so violently I could barely understand her. “Please. Don't run. They’re watching my house. They’re watching my phone. I had to follow you.”
“You have a gun,” I said coldly.
“It’s my husband’s,” she wept, wiping her face. “I took it from his lockbox. I didn't know what else to do. Vance told Mercer to 'handle' me. I know too much. They’re going to kill me, Karen.”
I stared at the woman. Two days ago, I wanted her fired for her cruelty. Now, she looked like a terrified hostage.
“Why did you pour the water out?” I demanded. “If you knew the fountains were poisoned, why did you stop Grace from helping those kids?”
Mrs. Collins let out a broken sob and pressed her forehead against the glass of my window. “Because the sink in the gym isn't connected to the main municipal line,” she whispered. “It’s connected to an old, isolated well. The water Grace brought was safe, yes. But the children were watching her. If Grace made it acceptable to share, Mercer was going to swap Grace’s bottles with water from the contaminated third-floor tap. He was going to poison your daughter specifically to teach everyone a lesson. I poured it out to stop him from swapping it.”
The revelation hit me like a freight train. She wasn't punishing Grace. She was protecting her from a targeted poisoning.
“Oh my god,” I breathed, rolling the window down halfway.
“I didn't want to be part of this,” Collins cried, gripping the edge of the door. “But my husband has early-onset Alzheimer's. The district’s health insurance is the only thing keeping him in the memory care facility. Vance told me if I blew the whistle, he’d terminate my contract and my husband would be put out on the street.”
I felt a sudden, sharp pang of empathy. They had found the one thing she couldn't afford to lose and held it hostage. Just like they were holding Greg’s freedom over me.
“Greg told me about the blueprints,” I said. “He said he hid them in a box, but Mercer took them.”
Mrs. Collins shook her head frantically. “Mercer didn’t take them. I did.”
I stared at her. “You have the blueprints proving they bypassed the water?”
“Not the blueprints,” she said, reaching into her oversized cardigan pocket. “I didn't know what the papers were. I just knew Greg was terrified. When Mercer came looking for the box, I panicked. I grabbed the only thing I could understand.”
She pulled her hand out of her pocket.
Resting in her trembling palm was a small, black, leather-bound notebook. It looked like an old ledger.
“It’s Vance’s private accounting book,” Collins whispered. “He left it in Mercer’s office by mistake during a closed-door meeting last month. Mercer tore the school apart looking for it. It has every wire transfer, every bribe, every shell company. Including your boss's luxury development.”
She shoved the black notebook through the window. I caught it. The leather was worn and warm from her pocket.
“Take it to the state police in Indianapolis,” Collins pleaded. “Do not go to the local precinct. Vance owns the chief. Go straight to the state authorities. It’s enough to put them all away.”
I looked down at the ledger. It was the key to everything. It was the answer.
“Come with us,” I said, looking back at her. “Get in your car and follow me to Indianapolis.”
She shook her head, tears streaming freely now. “If I run, they’ll go to the memory care facility. I have to go back. I have to pretend I don't know anything until you blow this wide open.”
She took a step back from the car.
“Karen,” she said, her voice suddenly dropping an octave, turning completely serious. “There is something else in the book. Tucked into the back page. I didn't tell you about it because I didn't want you to panic.”
“What is it?”
“You need to look at it. Because Vance isn't just trying to cover his tracks anymore. He’s trying to tie up loose ends.”
Before I could ask what she meant, a pair of blinding headlights suddenly swept across the parking lot. An engine roared.
A heavy, dark pickup truck accelerated from the far end of the strip mall, heading straight for Mrs. Collins’s silver sedan.
“Susan, move!” I screamed.
She turned, her eyes widening in horror.
She dove onto the pavement just as the pickup truck slammed violently into the side of her sedan. Metal crunched, glass exploded, and the sedan was violently pushed sideways, scraping across the asphalt.
The pickup truck didn't stop. It threw itself into reverse, the tires smoking, and tore out of the parking lot, disappearing into the night.
I threw open my door and ran to Mrs. Collins. She was lying on the ground, bleeding from a deep cut on her forehead, but she was breathing.
“Susan! Are you okay?”
“Go!” she screamed, pushing me away. “He saw you! He knows you have the book! Drive!”
I ran back to the SUV, threw it into gear, and sped out of the parking lot, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
I merged onto the state highway heading toward Indianapolis. I handed the black notebook over the seat to Grace.
“Honey, open the book. Look at the very back page. Tell me what’s in there.”
I heard the rustle of pages.
“It’s a piece of paper, Mom,” Grace said quietly.
“What does it say?”
“It’s not writing. It’s a picture.”
“A picture of what?”
Grace fell completely silent. The silence stretched for five terrifying seconds.
“Grace, what is it?” I demanded, looking in the rearview mirror.
My daughter looked up at me, her face completely drained of color. She held the photograph up to the mirror so I could see it.
It was a printed out, high-resolution photograph.
It was a picture of my SUV, parked in my own driveway. But the photo was taken from inside my house.
May you like
Written in thick black marker across the bottom were four words:
We are already inside.
