Chapter 7 - THE DEAL AT SAINT MARY’S
We did not give Raymond the ledger.
We gave him a copy.
Cole photographed every page while Boone called a retired state investigator he trusted.
The files were uploaded to six separate locations.
If Raymond destroyed the book, the names would survive.
Jack placed the original beneath his vest.
I carried the copy.
Raymond’s vehicles followed us to Saint Mary’s Hospice.
He wanted us to believe he controlled the road.
He did not know Mateo had remained behind with Evelyn.
He did not know the evidence was already moving beyond Black Hollow.
The hospice parking lot was almost empty.
A deputy stood near the entrance.
He looked away when Raymond passed.
Inside, the night nurse lay unconscious behind the reception desk.
She was breathing.
A bruise darkened her temple.
We ran toward Room Seven.
My mother’s bed was empty.
The oxygen tube rested on the floor.
A wheelchair track marked the hallway.
Raymond entered behind us.
“Where is she?” I demanded.
He held out his hand.
“The ledger.”
I gave him the copy.
He flipped through the pages.
His eyes narrowed.
“You removed something.”
“It is all there.”
“No.”
He turned to a page dated October 14, 1994.
“The final payment record is missing.”
“What final payment?”
Raymond closed the ledger.
“You still do not understand what happened that night.”
Jack grabbed him.
“Then explain it.”
Sheriff Owen pulled his weapon.
“Let him go.”
Jack looked toward him.
“You are pointing a gun at the wrong man.”
Owen’s jaw tightened.
“I said let him go.”
“You were born as Rebecca Sloan’s son.”
The gun shifted.
Raymond’s face changed.
Owen stared at Jack.
“What did you say?”
“Your name was not Owen Calder.”
“Do not listen to him,” Raymond said.
Jack removed the photograph Evelyn had given us.
He tossed it onto the floor.
Owen looked down.
Raymond and his wife stood beside him as a child.
On the back, Evelyn had written Infant Sloan.
Owen bent to pick it up.
Raymond moved toward him.
“Old photographs prove nothing.”
“My birth certificate lists a father who died before I was born.”
“Your father was my brother.”
“There is no record of him existing.”
Owen’s voice had changed.
Raymond looked at me.
“This is what your mother started.”
“No.”
I stepped toward him.
“This is what you started when you decided children could be sold.”
A sound came from the hospice chapel.
Something struck a wooden pew.
Jack moved first.
We followed him through the double doors.
Margaret sat in a wheelchair near the altar.
A plastic tube ran from an oxygen tank behind her.
A man wearing hospital scrubs stood beside her.
He held a syringe against her neck.
I recognized him as one of Raymond’s former deputies.
“Give Mr. Calder the real ledger,” he said.
Jack opened his vest.
The leather book was visible.
Raymond entered the chapel.
“Put it on the altar.”
Jack did not move.
My mother looked at him.
“I am sorry.”
Jack’s expression remained cold.
“That does not help.”
“I know.”
“You let my mother believe I was dead.”
“I was trying to keep both of you alive.”
“You had thirty-two years to tell us.”
“I was afraid.”
“So was I.”
His voice broke for the first time.
“I spent my entire life wondering why I was unwanted.”
Margaret began to cry.
“I wanted you.”
Jack looked at me.
The words hurt both of us.
The man pressed the syringe closer to Margaret’s neck.
Jack placed the ledger on the altar.
Raymond walked toward it.
Before he reached the book, Owen raised his gun.
He did not aim at Jack.
He aimed at Raymond.
“Where is Rebecca Sloan?”
Raymond stopped.
“Owen.”
“Where is my mother?”
Raymond looked at him for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
“You have been looking at her grave your entire life.”
Owen’s hand began shaking.
“Which grave?”
Raymond pointed toward me.
“She was buried beneath Laura Bennett’s empty family plot.”
A gunshot tore through the chapel.
Margaret screamed.
The man with the syringe collapsed beside her.
Boone stood in the doorway holding his weapon.
Raymond grabbed the ledger and ran through the side exit.
Owen followed.
Jack knelt beside Margaret.
The syringe had scratched her skin but had not entered her neck.
I reached for her oxygen tube.
She caught my hand.
“There is something else.”
“What?”
“Jack was not the only child I gave Thomas Mercer.”
Jack stared at her.
Margaret’s eyes moved toward the chapel door.
“He had a baby girl with him when he left Black Hollow.”
My breath stopped.
May you like
Margaret began to cry.
“Laura, you had twins.”
