Chapter 4 - The Contents of Volume 4
The man in the gray suit started to move toward me.
"Move aside, ma'am," he said, his voice a dull monotone.
But he didn't get far.
Cormac entered through the side garage door, followed by two uniformed officers.
"Nobody moves!" the lead officer shouted.
The party guests screamed. My mother fainted onto the sofa.
Sawyer stood in the corner, tears streaming down his face.
"I'm sorry, Aunt Maddie," he sobbed. "She said if I didn't help, we'd be evicted."
I looked at Rowan.
She was backed against the wall, the canvas bag clutched like a shield.
"Give me the binder, Rowan," Cormac said, stepping forward.
"It's mine! It’s family business!" she yelled.
"It's a federal crime," Cormac corrected.
The officers moved in. They didn't ask nicely.
They stripped the bag from her hands and forced her into handcuffs.
The man in the gray suit tried to slip out the back, but the second officer tackled him to the grass.
Cormac picked up the black binder.
He opened it on the table, right next to the ruins of my gender-reveal cake.
I walked over and looked at the pages.
It wasn't just about the witness protection.
It was a complete dossier on my life.
My bank account numbers.
My social security number.
My medical records from the fertility clinic.
And something else.
A life insurance policy.
A policy I didn't recognize.
It was for five million dollars.
The beneficiary wasn't Cormac.
It was Rowan.
"She wasn't just selling your location to the people I was investigating, Maddie," Cormac whispered, his face white.
"She was waiting for them to finish the job."
"She was going to get paid by the criminals to find us, and then get paid by the insurance when you were 'gone'."
I looked at my sister.
The person I had shared a bedroom with for eighteen years.
The person who had held my hand at our father’s funeral.
"You were going to kill me?" I asked, the words feeling like lead.
"For a viral video and an insurance check?"
Rowan didn't look ashamed. She looked angry.
"You always had everything, Madison!" she spat.
"The perfect husband. The perfect house. The perfect baby."
"I'm struggling to pay rent, and you're complaining about blue frosting!"
"You didn't deserve any of it."
The police led her away, her designer shoes clicking against the hardwood floor.
They took the man in gray, too.
The house was suddenly quiet, save for the sound of Sawyer’s muffled crying.
I walked over to him and put my hand on his shoulder.
He didn't pull away.
He was just a kid caught in a storm he couldn't control.
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"It’s over, Sawyer," I said. "You're safe now."
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