Chapter 12 - THE FINAL NECKLACE CLASPED AROUND HER NECK
We tore back up the estate driveway. The iron gates were twisted and broken off their hinges. A rusted pickup truck—my father’s truck—was parked haphazardly on the front lawn.
Vincent didn't wait for the car to fully stop before he bailed out, his gun drawn.
I ran after him, my chest burning with cold air.
We burst through the front doors and headed straight for the basement stairs. The heavy steel door to the holding suite was wide open.
Inside the dimly lit room, Mrs. Russo was sitting in a wooden chair, her hands tied.
Standing behind her, pulling a thin wire necklace tight around her throat, was my father.
“Dad! Stop!” I screamed.
He froze. He looked up at me, his eyes wide and panicked. He looked older, smaller, like a man who had been running for twenty-five years and had finally hit a wall.
“Tessa, go upstairs,” he choked out. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Drop the wire, Thomas,” Vincent ordered, aiming his weapon dead at my father’s chest.
“She ruined everything!” my father yelled, pulling the wire just a fraction tighter. Mrs. Russo gasped for air. “She took your mother’s mind! She was going to take you away from me!”
“So you killed her?” I sobbed. “You killed my mother and then let me think this family did it?”
“I did it for us!” he cried.
Mrs. Russo, even with a wire at her throat, let out a dry, raspy laugh.
“You did it because you are a coward, Thomas,” she wheezed. “You took my money for twenty-five years. You bought her school clothes with the blood of her mother.”
My father screamed in rage and yanked the wire.
BANG.
The gunshot echoed off the concrete walls.
My father’s grip went slack. He looked down at his chest. A dark red stain began to spread across his flannel shirt.
He stumbled backward and collapsed onto the cold floor.
Vincent lowered his smoking gun.
I fell to my knees beside the man who had raised me. The man who had brushed my hair and taught me how to ride a bike. The man who had murdered my mother.
He reached a shaking hand up toward my face.
“I’m sorry, Tessie,” he whispered, using his childhood nickname for me. “I just wanted to keep you.”
His hand fell. His eyes went blank.
It was over.
Vincent walked over and pulled the wire necklace off his mother’s throat. He didn't help her stand up. He just looked down at her with absolute disgust.
“You knew he was the killer all along,” Vincent said to her. “And you used him. You’re both monsters.”
“I protected our family,” she whispered defensively.
“You destroyed it,” Vincent replied. He turned his back on her. “The police are on their way. You’ll spend the rest of your life in a federal cell for conspiracy to murder.”
He walked over and gently lifted me off the floor.
I couldn't stop crying, but as Vincent held me, the weight of the last twenty-five years finally lifted off my shoulders.
An hour later, the police took Mrs. Russo away in handcuffs. Her walker was left abandoned in the hallway.
The sun began to rise over the estate, casting a warm, golden light across the marble floors.
Camille brought little Leo out to the porch. The boy smiled and pointed at the sunrise.
Vincent wrapped his good arm around my shoulders.
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The secrets were finally buried. The truth was out in the light.
And for the first time, this massive, beautiful house actually felt like a home.
