Chapter 9 - The Runway
Officers immediately ordered Lauren to show her hands.
She froze.
Emma stopped beside the police vehicle.
Daniel stepped instinctively in front of her.
Lauren slowly removed her hand from the purse.
She was holding a phone.
Nothing more.
Ruiz approached carefully.
“Put it on the ground.”
Lauren obeyed.
Bennett raised both hands.
“This is absurd.”
Ruiz ignored him.
Lauren looked directly at Emma.
“You couldn’t leave it alone.”
Emma said nothing.
“You had everything.”
Lauren’s voice grew sharper.
“My brother.”
“A beautiful home.”
“A child coming.”
“You could have enjoyed your little life.”
Emma finally answered.
“It wasn’t your money.”
Lauren laughed.
“You still don’t understand this family.”
“No.”
Emma’s voice remained calm.
“I understand it better now than I ever did.”
Lauren glanced toward Daniel.
“You’re choosing her over your own sister?”
Daniel looked at Lauren for a long moment.
Then he said something she had never expected to hear.
“I’m choosing the truth over you.”
Lauren’s face collapsed.
Officers handcuffed her.
Bennett was arrested moments later.
Inside the SUV, investigators found Henry’s medical records.
They also found two laptops.
Thirty thousand dollars in cash.
Several passports.
And a vial inside a refrigerated medical case.
The vial was sent to a laboratory.
Ruiz refused to speculate about what it contained.
Emma returned to the apartment.
For the first time in days, she slept for nearly six hours.
When she woke, Daniel was sitting in the kitchen.
He had made tea.
Emma sat across from him.
Neither spoke immediately.
Finally, Daniel said, “I resigned from the foundation board.”
Emma looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because my name is on documents I never properly reviewed.”
“You didn’t steal the money.”
“No.”
“But I trusted people because they were family.”
Daniel looked down.
“That trust helped them.”
Emma understood what he was trying to say.
Accountability was not the same thing as guilt.
But it mattered.
Daniel continued.
“I also moved out of the mansion.”
Emma looked surprised.
“I’m not asking to move in here.”
He almost smiled.
“I know better.”
The small joke disappeared quickly.
“I’m going to counseling.”
Emma remained silent.
“I spent years asking you to tolerate things I should have stopped.”
Daniel looked at her.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me because I finally figured that out.”
Emma’s eyes filled with tears.
She hated that part of her still loved him.
She hated that love did not erase disappointment.
“I don’t know what happens to us.”
Daniel nodded.
“That’s fair.”
Her phone rang.
Detective Ruiz.
Emma answered.
“We got the lab results from the vial.”
His voice was serious.
“It contains a concentrated anticoagulant.”
Emma sat upright.
Daniel saw her expression.
Ruiz continued.
“And we found the same medication listed in Dr. Nathan Cole’s purchase records two days before your father-in-law’s stroke.”
Emma whispered.
“Are you saying they poisoned Henry?”
“I’m saying we finally have enough to ask Dr. Cole that question.”
Ruiz paused.
“But there’s another problem.”
May you like
“What?”
“Dr. Cole disappeared this morning.”
