Chapter 17 - The Shot
For one terrible second, I thought Mom had been hit.
Then Caleb dropped the gun.
A federal marksman had fired through the window and struck his shoulder.
Agents rushed inside.
Caleb screamed as they forced him to the floor.
Mom stood frozen in front of me.
I grabbed her.
“You’re okay.”
She started shaking.
“I thought he was going to shoot you.”
Daniel burst through the doorway despite agents ordering civilians to stay back.
He reached me and Emma’s empty carrier before realizing Emma was safely with Margaret miles away.
His face was white with terror.
“Grace.”
“I’m okay.”
He pulled me against him.
Behind us, agents read Caleb his rights.
Caleb looked toward Charles, who had entered with investigators.
“You think this ends anything?”
Charles stared down at his brother.
“It ends you using my family.”
Caleb laughed through the pain.
“You still don’t understand.”
Then he looked at me.
“Ask Robert where the missing eight million went.”
Dad had confessed to almost everything.
Almost.
Investigators confronted him the next morning.
He broke within an hour.
Eight million dollars had never reached Caleb.
Dad stole it from their own scheme.
He hid the money years earlier as insurance.
“Where?”
Dad gave the location.
A trust account.
Under Emma’s name.
I stared at the investigator.
“My newborn?”
Dad had opened it two weeks before her birth using forged hospital documents.
“He was preparing an escape fund.”
Maya explained.
“If authorities discovered it, the money would appear connected to Daniel’s child.”
I felt physically sick.
Dad had been willing to frame his own granddaughter before she took her first breath.
He had not simply rejected Emma.
He had used her.
The account was frozen.
Every dollar would eventually be returned to victims and the children’s foundation.
Dad signed his final plea agreement.
Caleb was indicted on fraud, kidnapping, conspiracy, obstruction, and charges connected to Grandma’s death.
Aaron Sloan agreed to cooperate.
For the first time in months, there were no immediate emergencies.
Then Daniel took me back to the house where everything had started.
Dad’s house.
My house.
My suitcase was still on the porch.
Daniel picked it up.
I stared at the front door.
“You don’t have to go inside.”
“Yes, I do.”
I walked into my childhood home.
And discovered someone had placed Grandma Evelyn’s sewing box on the kitchen table.
Inside was one final envelope.
This one was dated the week before she died.
May you like
And it was addressed not to me.
But to Daniel.
