THE SOUND OF SHATTERING GLASS

"Niece?" I repeated, the word sounding foreign in my mouth. "I don't have a niece. I'm an only child."

Sterling let out a cruel, mocking laugh over the speaker. "Oh, Eleanor. The things your family has kept from you. Ask your father. Assuming the ghost in the woods is sitting next to you."

I turned slowly to look at my father. The color had completely drained from his face.

"Dad?" I whispered. "Who is he talking about?"

My father buried his face in his hands, letting out a ragged, defeated sigh. "Her name is Lily. She's seven."

"Whose child is she?" I demanded, my voice rising in panic.

"She’s mine," Harper said from the front seat. Her voice cracked, the iron facade she had worn all night finally shattering. She turned around, tears streaming down her face. "She's my daughter. And David is her grandfather."

The silence in the truck was absolute, broken only by the hum of the tires on the wet pavement.

I looked from Harper to Martin, then back to my father. "Wait. You said Martin was your father."

"He raised me," Harper sobbed, wiping aggressively at her cheeks. "But my biological father was David's oldest son. He died before I was born. Martin took me in. He protected me from this family."

David chuckled darkly from the back of the truck. "Blood always tells, Eleanor. She thought she could play spy, thought she could take down her own grandfather. But Sterling found out about the kid. Sterling is stupid, but he's vicious when cornered."

"Where is she, Sterling?" Harper screamed at the phone. "If you touch one hair on her head—"

"Shut up, Harper," Sterling snapped. "Here are the rules. You have thirty minutes to bring the microfiche to Pier 42. Come alone, Eleanor. If I see cops, if I see Martin, or if I see the ghost of Richard Vance, I drop the girl in the river. Do we understand each other?"

"Yes," I said, my voice eerily calm. "Thirty minutes."

He hung up.

"Turn the truck around," Harper said frantically, clawing at Martin's arm. "We have to go to the pier!"

"No," my father said firmly. "We go to the cemetery. We need the ledger."

"He's going to kill my daughter!" Harper screamed.

"Sterling doesn't care about the ledger!" my father shouted back. "He only knows about the microfiche because David told him about it. But the ledger is the only thing that names the buyers. Without it, David's network survives, even if David goes to prison. We need the ledger to destroy them all."

"I don't care about the network!" Harper cried. "I care about Lily!"

"Stop!" I yelled, silencing the entire truck.

I looked at the brass key in my hand. Then I looked at Harper. The woman who had worn my mother's ring. The woman who had played the villain to uncover the truth. She was a mother, terrified for her child.

I knew exactly what I had to do.

"Martin, pull over," I commanded.

"Eleanor, we don't have time—" Martin started.

"Pull the damn truck over!" I roared.

Martin swerved onto the shoulder, slamming on the brakes.

I unbuckled my seatbelt and opened the door. I grabbed my father's heavy wool coat, pulling it off his shoulders and slipping it over my own freezing, champagne-soaked dress.

"Eleanor, what are you doing?" my father asked, panicked.

"I'm going to the pier," I said. I reached into Martin's pocket and pulled out the silver pocket watch. "I have the microfiche. Sterling wants me."

"You can't go alone," Harper said, grabbing my hand. "He'll kill you."

"He wants a hostage," I said, my mind working faster than it had in years. The fog of grief and compliance that had clouded my brain for two years was gone. "He thinks I'm the weak, fragile wife he manipulated. He thinks I'll break. Let him think that."

I looked at my father. "You and Martin go to the cemetery. Get the ledger. Harper, you follow me to the pier on foot once I'm inside. You stay in the shadows and you wait for my signal."

"What signal?" Harper asked.

I reached out and took her right hand. I slid my mother's sapphire ring off her finger and slipped it onto my own. It fit perfectly.

"When you see the flash of blue," I said, my voice hardening into steel. "You shoot him."

Harper nodded, her eyes fierce.