Chapter 9 - Two Hundred Thousand Reasons
The power failure lasted forty-eight seconds.
It was enough time for Lorraine to escape through the blue room, cross the service courtyard, and enter a waiting black sedan. It was also enough time for someone to remove the chair and smash the display case where Charles Cole's old company seal had been placed as family memorabilia.
Police blocked the surrounding roads. The sedan was found three miles away with its doors open and engine running. A rideshare driver reported collecting a blond woman in a black gown near a church, but Lorraine never entered his car. A man wearing a maintenance uniform paid the driver two hundred dollars to leave his phone on the back seat and walk away.
The escape had been planned.
Detective Ortiz ordered the mansion sealed. Guests gave statements in the library. The press remained outside the gates, where news of Lorraine's recorded confession spread before midnight.
Natalie returned to the hospital under medical escort. Ethan wanted to go with her, but she asked him to remain with the police and protect the evidence.
"Do the part only you can do," she said. "Then come back."
It was not forgiveness. It was trust measured in one task.
Ethan stayed.
Forensic officers found a narrow passage behind the blue room bookcase, built during Charles's renovation. The passage led to a garage bay not shown on current floor plans. On a shelf lay the missing cash box, empty except for Natalie's wedding ring and a microSD card taped beneath the lining.
Ethan did not touch the ring. Ortiz photographed it, sealed it, and promised Natalie would decide when it was returned.
The memory card contained scanned financial records going back fifteen years. Most concerned Ashford Holdings, dormant construction projects, and transfers between Charles, Lorraine, and a person identified only as A. Mercer. Grant denied knowing who A. Mercer was. He had never seen the historical records.
The final file was recent.
It was a video recorded in the blue room three months earlier. Lorraine sat behind the desk while Brooke paced before her.
"She is getting worse," Brooke said. "What if she dies before the transfer is notarized?"
"Then the shares pass according to her will," Lorraine replied.
"To Ethan."
"Which changes nothing. He will return if she dies. We need her alive, weak, and willing to sign."
Brooke stopped pacing. "Grant says the board will not accept the medical certificate."
"The certificate is not for the board. It is for Ethan. He will see a doctor's name and believe me because believing me is easier than admitting he left her here."
Ethan watched his mother's confidence on the screen and understood that she had not merely exploited his trust. She had studied it as a weakness.
In the video, Brooke lifted Natalie's wedding ring from the desk.
"Can I keep this?"
"After Friday," Lorraine said. "When the proxy is final, you can keep whatever you like."
The file gave prosecutors conspiracy, financial exploitation, unlawful imprisonment, evidence tampering, and a clear link between Lorraine and Brooke. It also proved Natalie had been kept alive for the purpose of obtaining her shares, undermining any claim that Lorraine believed she was providing care.
But it did not reveal who helped Lorraine escape.
At 2:00 a.m., a highway patrol camera captured the black Larkspur sedan traveling south near Casa Grande. Brooke was driving. Lorraine sat beside her. A third figure occupied the back seat, face hidden by a cap.
Ortiz alerted border authorities.
Ethan went to the hospital before dawn. Natalie was awake, sitting beside the window with a blanket around her. He told her about the ring and the video, leaving out nothing.
"She wanted me alive," Natalie said slowly. "That is why she sometimes called the doctor when I fainted. I thought part of her cared."
"I am sorry."
"Stop saying that when you mean you wish the truth were different."
He absorbed the correction. "I wish the truth were different."
"So do I."
He sat by the door.
"The preliminary results are good," Natalie said after a while. "Dr. Serrano thinks the condition is treatable. I will need months of therapy and monitoring. Maybe longer."
Relief rose so sharply that Ethan covered his mouth.
"That does not mean everything goes back," she continued.
"I know."
"I am going to Sarah's guesthouse when I am discharged. Not home with you."
"All right."
"I will decide if and when we talk about the marriage."
"All right."
"And my shares remain mine."
"They always should have."
Natalie looked at him for a long moment. "That is the first correct thing you have said without being told."
At 6:17 a.m., Ortiz called. Border agents had stopped the Larkspur sedan at a checkpoint.
Brooke was arrested at the wheel.
The rear passenger was a private security contractor Lorraine had hired.
Lorraine was not in the car.
Brooke claimed her mother left them at a desert gas station and departed in a vintage red truck. When Ortiz showed her the conspiracy charges and the video, Brooke began crying.
"She said Ethan would forgive us," Brooke whispered. "She said he always forgives family."
Then she offered a bargain.
May you like
She knew where the two hundred thousand dollars had gone. She knew where Lorraine intended to hide. And she knew why Charles's name was on the guest list.
But she would tell them only if Ethan came alone.
