Chapter 7 - The Ledger in the Dark
"Do it, Alex!" Vance choked out, wiping blood and mud from his mouth, staring up at me with venomous eyes. "Kill me! You'll spend the rest of your life in a state pen, and your little girl will be an orphan!"
My hand shook uncontrollably above my head. Every instinct in my body, every ounce of grief and agony screaming in my mind, told me to strike him down right there in the rain.
“Daddy, don't...”
Lily's sweet, innocent voice echoed in my memory.
I took a deep, shuddering breath, lowered the tire iron, and slammed my boot violently into Vance's chest, pinning him flat against the muddy ground.
"Death is too easy for you, Vance," I growled, bending down until my face was inches from his. "You're going to rot in a federal cage for the rest of your miserable life."
Dozens of police cruisers tore into the quarry, their red and blue lights reflecting off the pooling rainwater. Sheriff Miller leaped out of the lead vehicle, weapon drawn, followed by six armed deputies.
"Alex! Stand down!" Miller yelled, rushing forward.
I stepped back, allowing the deputies to slam Vance onto his stomach and ratchet heavy steel handcuffs around his wrists.
"We got him, Alex," Miller said softly, laying a heavy hand on my trembling shoulder. "It's over."
"It's not over yet," I said, wiping rain from my face. "The manifest ledger... Clara hid it somewhere before they took her. Vance didn't find it."
Sheriff Miller looked at me in surprise. "How do you know?"
"Because if Vance had found the ledger, he wouldn't have bothered coming back to steal her body," I said. "He was looking for something she had hidden on her or near her."
I walked over to the back of the tandem trailer where Clara's gurney rested. The black body bag was untouched. I knelt beside it, my hands shaking as I gently unzipped the top few inches to see my wife's pale, peaceful face one last time.
Her hair was damp, tucked neatly behind her ears. Around her neck, tucked beneath the collar of her white blouse, was a faint silver chain.
I reached out, my fingers trembling, and carefully pulled the chain forward.
Attached to the end of the chain wasn't a locket or a ring. It was a tiny, waterproof metal USB flash drive engraved with our wedding date.
Clara had worn the evidence around her neck the entire time—right under their noses.
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I held the small drive tightly in my fist, pressing it against my chest as hot tears washed over my face. She had protected the truth until her very last breath.
"I got it, sweetie," I whispered into the wind. "I got it."
