Chapter 11 - PARKER’S OFFER
Parker entered alone.
At least, he appeared alone.
He raised both hands.
His expensive suit was stained with mud, and a cut marked his lower lip.
“Listen to me before you do something irreversible.”
Clarissa remained behind the desk.
“You planned our marriage.”
“Yes.”
The answer was so direct that it unsettled her.
“You used me.”
“At first.”
“At first?”
Parker took another step.
“I was twenty-six. Victor promised me money, a career, everything I thought I wanted. I was supposed to meet you, gain your trust, and help move the estate.”
Maya held up her phone, recording him.
Parker noticed.
“I don’t care anymore.”
Clarissa’s voice shook.
“Did you ever love me?”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“Yes.”
“That isn’t possible.”
“It became possible.”
“You threatened to take Dustin.”
“To stop you from running directly into this.”
“You froze my accounts.”
“Because Victor monitors them.”
“You let your mother starve my son.”
Parker’s face tightened.
“I did not know she would do that.”
“But you knew how she treated him.”
He looked away.
Clarissa felt the last part of her marriage collapse.
Perhaps Parker believed he loved her.
Perhaps he even believed his lies had protected her.
But love that tolerated cruelty was not love she could accept.
“Where is my father?” she asked.
Parker slowly lowered his hands.
“I don’t know.”
“Was he alive after the bridge?”
“Yes.”
Evelyn inhaled sharply.
“You knew?”
Parker nodded.
“Victor’s men forced Thomas’s car off the road, but he escaped before it went into the water. Nathan hid him.”
“The body?”
“A homeless man Victor had killed.”
Clarissa gripped the desk.
“And you identified him.”
“I had no choice.”
“You always had a choice.”
Parker’s expression became desperate.
“Victor threatened you. He threatened Dustin.”
“Dustin was not born yet when my father died.”
“The threats continued.”
Clarissa realized Parker was still trying to make himself the protector in a story he had helped create.
“Where did my father go?”
“The last time I saw him was at the hospital after your surgery.”
The figure behind the glass.
Not a hallucination.
“He wanted to take you and Dustin away,” Parker continued. “Nathan stopped him. They believed Victor was watching.”
“Why didn’t he contact me later?”
“Something happened at the lake house.”
“The blood on the coat.”
Parker nodded.
“Nathan told me Thomas had been injured.”
“Did he die?”
“I don’t know.”
A gunshot exploded in the tunnel.
Parker turned.
A second shot struck the red door.
Evelyn pulled Clarissa down.
Jonah switched off his phone light.
Parker drew a gun from beneath his jacket.
Maya whispered, “You came armed.”
“I came followed.”
Men moved outside.
Victor Hale’s voice echoed through the passage.
“Parker, bring her out.”
Parker looked at Clarissa.
“This is the offer. Give Victor the cylinder and the original tapes. He lets you and Dustin leave the country.”
“You believe him?”
“No.”
“Then why call it an offer?”
“Because the alternative is that we fight through the tunnel.”
Clarissa looked at the shelves of evidence.
“Can these files be transmitted?”
Jonah examined the old computer system.
“Not quickly.”
Evelyn opened a floor panel.
A narrow pipe descended toward the lake.
“We can destroy the room with water.”
Clarissa understood.
If they could not preserve the evidence, they could prevent Victor from taking it.
Parker moved toward the tunnel.
“I’ll hold them back.”
Clarissa stopped him.
“Why?”
He looked over his shoulder.
“Because once, somewhere between the first lie and the last, you became the only true thing in my life.”
Clarissa did not forgive him.
But for the first time, she believed he was telling the truth.
Parker stepped into the tunnel and fired.
Evelyn opened the flood valve.
Water roared beneath the floor.
Jonah grabbed as many drives as he could carry.
Maya filled a bag with documents.
Clarissa took the tape recorder and her father’s journal.
The chamber began to flood.
Parker shouted from the tunnel.
“Go.”
Clarissa looked back once.
May you like
Parker stood in the red doorway, firing into the darkness while water rose around his knees.
Then the lights failed.
