CHAPTER TWELVE BIANCA’S LAST BARGAIN
Bianca contacted me twelve hours later.
She called from my mother’s old summer house near the coast.
“I have the ledger,” she said.
“What do you want?”
“A guarantee.”
“You already signed a cooperation agreement.”
“Samuel’s people will kill me before I reach sentencing.”
“Samuel is in custody.”
“Samuel has people everywhere.”
She was right.
Three witnesses connected to his financial network had already disappeared.
Bianca wanted a new identity, full protection, and enough money to leave the country after her sentence.
“I cannot purchase your freedom.”
“You purchased everything else.”
“No. Adrian did.”
“You signed the checks.”
The accusation landed.
For years, I had allowed Adrian to use company funds without examining the human cost.
Ignorance was not innocence.
“Why take the ledger?”
“Because it contains a page the government has not seen.”
“What page?”
“The list of judges Samuel paid.”
One of those judges was overseeing Adrian’s criminal case.
If the list was real, Adrian could escape through a compromised court.
I agreed to meet Bianca with federal agents positioned nearby.
She refused to speak with anyone else.
The summer house stood above a gray, violent ocean.
Bianca waited inside wearing jeans and one of my old sweaters.
The sight should have angered me.
Instead, it looked pathetic.
She placed the ledger on the dining table.
“I used to imagine this house belonged to me,” she said.
“None of it belonged to Adrian.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it before.”
She looked toward the ocean.
“My mother raised Nora because Samuel paid her. We moved every year. New names. New schools. New lies.”
“You could have told the police.”
“I was a child.”
“And later?”
“I was poor.”
“So you sold my daughter?”
Her face tightened.
“I kept her alive.”
“You also kept her hidden.”
“Because Adrian said he would destroy us.”
“You moved into my home voluntarily.”
Bianca finally looked at me.
“I wanted to become you.”
The honesty surprised me.
“Not because of Adrian. Not at first. I saw your photographs in magazines. The gowns. The charity events. The house. Everyone respected you.”
“They respected my name.”
“I didn’t know the difference.”
She admitted that Adrian had approached her when she turned twenty-five.
He told her my health was failing.
He promised that once I was declared incompetent, Bianca would become the visible woman beside him.
He taught her how I dressed.
Which perfume I wore.
How I signed foundation letters.
He gave her my jewelry because he wanted the staff to become accustomed to seeing another woman use it.
“You were rehearsing my replacement.”
“Yes.”
“Did you poison me?”
Bianca stared at the floor.
“Yes.”
The word was almost inaudible.
“Did you know what was in the tea?”
“Not at first.”
“And after you knew?”
“I kept doing it.”
I wanted to hate her.
Part of me did.
But hatred was easier than understanding how envy, fear, and greed could turn an ordinary person into an accomplice.
She opened the ledger to the missing page.
The judge assigned to Adrian’s case had received payments for eleven years.
So had a senator, two prosecutors, and a senior federal investigator.
“The investigator is the person supervising my protection,” Bianca said.
A floorboard creaked behind us.
Her eyes widened.
The back door opened.
Nathan Cole entered holding a pistol.
He had escaped the raid at Blackstone House.
“Step away from the ledger,” he ordered.
Bianca moved closer to me.
Nathan smiled.
“You spent years trying to become Mrs. Sterling. Now you can die beside her.”
A gunshot exploded.
The window behind Nathan shattered.
He fell forward.
Federal agents stormed through the doors.
Bianca collapsed against the table.
At first, I thought she was frightened.
Then I saw the blood spreading across my mother’s sweater.
Nathan had fired before he fell.
The bullet had struck Bianca beneath the ribs.
She looked down at the wound.
Then at me.
“Tell Nora I was sorry.”
“You can tell her yourself.”
Bianca gave a weak laugh.
“Don’t lie to me. You’re terrible at it.”
Paramedics rushed inside.
As they lifted her, she grabbed my wrist.
“There is one more name on the page.”
I looked down.
May you like
Beneath the list of officials was a signature I recognized.
Charles Whitmore.
