Chapter 7 - The Secret Deal
"Mason, put the gun down," I yelled, pressing my back against the cold, filthy brick of the alleyway. "You really want to add murder to fraud and child abuse?"
"I don't care anymore!" Mason screamed, his hand shaking violently. "David bailed me out. He said if I don't get the ledger, he'll let me take the fall for the embezzlement. Hand it over!"
He cocked the gun.
I had a split second to decide. If I gave him the ledger, I lost my only proof of my innocence. If I didn't, I’d leave Amy a widow.
I threw the heavy leather ledger onto the hood of the SUV.
Mason snatched it eagerly, his eyes wild. He didn't even check to see if I had kept anything. He just reversed the SUV and sped away into the night, leaving me alive in the alley.
He thought he won. But he didn't know I still had the burner phone in my pocket. And he didn't know I had ripped the final five pages out of the ledger—the pages with David’s personal bank routing numbers—and stuffed them into my socks.
I made it to the police precinct by 3:00 AM.
I demanded to see the lead detective on my mother's case. Detective Vance, an older man with tired eyes, listened in silence as I laid out the burner phone, the torn ledger pages, and the story of the insurance policy.
"We can pull the surveillance from the diner and the alley to corroborate the SUV attack," Vance said, his face hardening as he read the text messages about my son. "This is enough for an arrest warrant for David Miller and Mason."
"And my mother?"
"She’s in holding. She hasn't said a word." Vance paused, tapping his pen. "Actually, Mr. Bradley, she did say one thing. She said she'd only talk if she could speak to you first. Alone."
I stared at the detective. "I have nothing to say to her."
"I think you should listen," Vance advised quietly. "She’s cornered. People like her, when they realize they're going down, they try to drag others with them. Find out what her play is."
Ten minutes later, I sat across from Teresa in a bleak interrogation room. She was no longer wearing her sparkling jewelry. She looked old, haggard, and furious.
"You ruined my party," she spat.
"You tried to kill my son," I replied, my voice dead calm.
She waved a dismissive hand. "A few drops of medicine so I could enjoy my evening. Don't be dramatic. You're here because you need me, Connor."
"I don't need anything from you. You're going to prison."
She leaned forward, a wicked smile cracking her dry lips. "Am I? David will get me the best lawyers. But if you want me to plead guilty, if you want me to leave you and that pathetic dishwasher wife of yours alone forever..."
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"What do you want?"
"I want the child," she whispered, her eyes gleaming with a sick obsession. "Give me custody of Frederick when I get out, and I'll confess to the fraud. If you don't, I will testify that you forced me to embezzle the money, and you'll go to prison, leaving Amy with nothing."
