THE BILLIONAIRE’S BURIED WIFE AND THE WAITRESS WHO KNEW TOO MUCH

The drive to the outskirts of Chicago took forty excruciating minutes.

Richard drove his Range Rover like a madman, the tires skidding on the slick, rain-soaked pavement. Elizabeth sat in the passenger seat, clutching the dashboard, her knuckles white. I sat in the back, a heavy steel tire iron gripped in my hands.

“Margaret’s childhood home burned down in 1995,” Elizabeth said, her voice shaking over the roar of the engine. “The main house was destroyed, but the detached root cellar survived. That’s where they kept me.”

“We’ll get him back, El,” Richard vowed, his jaw clenched so tight it looked like it might snap. “I swear to you, we will not lose him again.”

I stared out the window into the pitch-black night. My mind was racing.

Caroline Ellis. The younger sister. The one who supposedly died in the 2004 car crash. She had been living as a ghost for two decades, acting as Vanessa's muscle, her shadow.

The Range Rover swerved off the paved highway onto an overgrown dirt road. Branches scraped against the windows like skeletal fingers. The headlights cut through the heavy rain, illuminating the charred, rotting foundation of a massive house that had burned to the ground decades ago.

“Stop here,” Elizabeth whispered. “She’ll hear the engine.”

Richard killed the lights and the engine. The silence was deafening, broken only by the relentless drumming of rain on the roof.

“Stay behind me,” Richard ordered, reaching into the center console. He pulled out a heavy black handgun.

My eyes widened. I had never seen a real gun up close.

“Richard,” Elizabeth gasped.

“Nobody takes my son,” he said, his voice cold and flat.

We stepped out into the freezing mud. The smell of wet ash and rotting wood filled the air, even thirty years after the fire.

Elizabeth led the way, navigating the darkness with terrifying familiarity. We walked past the ruined chimney, toward a thick patch of overgrown thorn bushes.

Behind the bushes, half-buried in the mud, was a heavy wooden cellar door angled into the ground.

And fastened to the iron latch was a massive, rusted padlock.

“Leo!” Elizabeth screamed, throwing herself onto the wooden doors, clawing at the wet timber. “Leo, are you in there?!”

A muffled, frantic thumping came from beneath the earth.

“Mom!” a voice cried out from the dark below. It was faint, distorted by the heavy wood, but it was him.

“Stand back,” Richard said. He aimed the gun at the padlock.

Before he could pull the trigger, a bright flashlight beam clicked on behind us, blinding us all.

“Put the gun down, Richard,” a raspy woman’s voice echoed in the rain. “Or I drop the match.”

I shielded my eyes from the glare.

Standing ten feet away was a woman wearing a heavy yellow raincoat. She was holding the flashlight in one hand, and a lit flare in the other.

She looked remarkably like Vanessa, but her face was heavily scarred on the left side, the skin warped and melted.

This was Caroline.

And in her hands, I saw what she was standing next to.

A rusted, fifty-gallon oil drum, tipped on its side. Thick, strong-smelling liquid was pouring out of it, running down the muddy slope directly onto the wooden cellar doors.

Gasoline.

“Drop the gun,” Caroline repeated, holding the burning red flare dangerously close to the puddle of gas. “Or I burn this cellar to the ground, just like I burned the house thirty years ago.”

Richard froze, the gun still aimed at her.

“You started the fire,” Elizabeth breathed in horror. “You burned your own face, not Margaret.”

“Margaret was always the pretty one,” Caroline spat, her voice bitter and twisted. “But she was weak. I did the dirty work. I set the fire to get the insurance money. I drove your car off the cliff in 2004. I kept you locked down here.”

She looked at Richard.

“Margaret called me from the police car. She said the gig is up. The accounts are frozen. We have nothing left.” Caroline smiled, a grotesque twisting of her scarred face. “So if we don’t get the money, Richard... you don’t get your family.”

She lowered the flare toward the gasoline.

“Wait!” I yelled, stepping in front of Richard.

Caroline paused, squinting at me through the rain. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m the waitress,” I said, gripping the heavy steel tire iron behind my back. “And you dropped something at the restaurant.”

I reached into my pocket with my left hand and pulled out the silver watch Vanessa had stolen. I held it up in the rain.

Caroline’s eyes darted to the silver object. For one split second, her focus broke.

That was all I needed.

I didn’t throw the watch. I threw the heavy steel tire iron.

I launched it with every ounce of strength I had in my arm. It spun through the rainy air and slammed directly into Caroline’s wrist.

There was a sickening crack of bone.