Chapter 9 - THE LAST WITNESS
Federal agents entered through three sides of the mill.
Arthur seized Eleanor and pressed the pistol beneath her chin. His guards dropped their weapons, but he pulled her backward toward the river platform.
"Stay back!"
Annabelle worked the loosened rope against the sharp edge of the chair. Thomas appeared behind the agents, his charcoal suit soaked from the rain.
"Arthur," he called, "there is nowhere left to go."
"There was always somewhere," Arthur replied. "That is why your family paid me to find it."
Eleanor remained calm. "We paid you because we trusted you."
"Trust is simply power given without supervision."
The rope around Annabelle's right wrist broke.
She kept her hand behind the chair.
Thomas moved one step closer. "The files were copied. Diane confessed. Kessler recorded you. Killing Eleanor changes nothing."
Arthur's eyes shifted toward him.
Annabelle stood and drove the chair into Arthur's knees.
The gun fired into the ceiling.
Eleanor twisted free. Agents rushed forward, but Arthur jumped through the broken railing onto a lower maintenance platform. He ran toward a motorboat tied beneath the mill.
Annabelle followed before anyone could stop her.
"Annabelle!" Thomas shouted.
Arthur reached the boat and pulled a second weapon from beneath the seat.
Annabelle stopped ten feet away.
Rain swept across the river.
"You want to know why your mother kept the recording in Rebecca Hale's name?" he asked.
Annabelle stared at him.
Rebecca Hale was her mother's maiden name.
Arthur continued. "Because Kessler was not the last witness. Your mother survived the crash for forty-three minutes."
The world narrowed to his voice.
"She spoke at the hospital," Arthur said. "She named me."
"Then why weren't you arrested?"
"Because the deputy who took her statement worked for me. He destroyed it."
Arthur raised the weapon.
"Your mother died knowing no one would believe her."
A shot cracked.
Arthur fell backward into the boat.
Eleanor stood on the upper platform holding the pistol Arthur had dropped. Smoke curled from the barrel.
Agents pulled Arthur onto the dock. The bullet had struck his shoulder. He was alive.
"Good," Annabelle said through tears. "He gets to answer every question."
The deputy Arthur named was found living in Florida under a different name. Faced with obstruction and conspiracy charges, he surrendered a microcassette he had kept as protection.
Rebecca's final statement survived.
Her voice was weak but clear.
She named Arthur, described the brake sabotage, and said Jonathan had refused to sign away his shares.
Then she spoke directly to Eleanor.
"Please tell Annabelle her father was honest. Tell her we did not leave her. Tell her the truth will be late, but it will come."
Annabelle listened with Eleanor and Thomas in the library.
When the tape ended, no one spoke for a long time.
The truth had arrived seventeen years late.
May you like
But it had arrived in her mother's voice.
Orphan Inheritance - Magnolia Restaurant
