CHAPTER 9 — THE NAME ON THE FINAL PAGE
Thomas forced me to open the case.
The replica ledger lay inside.
He kept the pistol trained on Helena while he searched the final pages.
His face hardened.
“This is not the original.”
“No.”
“You brought a fake.”
“You kidnapped my mother. You expected honesty?”
A faint sound came through the gallery.
Thomas looked toward the ceiling.
He had detected the surveillance drone Adrian placed inside the ventilation system.
He fired once.
The drone fell from the darkness and shattered against the marble.
Then the museum lights died.
I dropped behind a stone display.
Thomas fired again.
The shot struck the floor where I had been standing.
Helena threw herself sideways in the wheelchair, knocking into his legs.
I ran toward her.
A beam of white light swept across the gallery.
Adrian’s officers entered through the restoration passage.
Thomas dragged Helena behind the auction stage and disappeared through a service door.
I followed.
“Mara, stop!” Adrian shouted.
The service corridor ended at the museum’s old freight elevator.
The doors were closing.
I saw Helena inside.
Thomas held the gun against her neck.
Our eyes met.
Then the elevator descended.
Adrian reached the controls.
“Where does it go?”
“Sublevel three.”
“That level isn’t on the public plans.”
“It connects to the original foundation tunnels.”
We took the emergency stairs.
At the bottom, the tunnel divided in three directions.
Thomas had left blood on the floor.
Not Helena’s.
One of Adrian’s shots must have struck him.
We followed the trail into an unfinished chamber beneath the museum.
Thomas sat against a stone wall.
Helena was beside him, still bound but unharmed.
His pistol lay several feet away.
I picked it up before approaching.
“It’s over.”
“No,” Thomas said. “It began eighteen years ago.”
Helena looked at me.
“He found the real ledger before the exchange.”
Thomas removed a wrapped book from beneath his coat.
“He believed the replica was a trap,” she said. “He came prepared.”
“Then why bring me here?” I asked.
“Because you needed to hear the truth without Elias controlling it.”
My father entered the chamber with federal agents.
Thomas laughed.
“Right on time.”
He opened the ledger to its final page.
A single payment authorization appeared beneath the record of my mother’s planned route on the night of the crash.
The signature belonged to Malcolm Holloway.
But another handwritten note appeared beside it.
Route confirmed by E.V.
Elias Vale.
I looked at my father.
His face drained of color.
“No.”
Thomas held up the page.
“Your father gave Malcolm the route.”
My mother closed her eyes.
My chest tightened.
“Father?”
Elias stepped into the chamber.
“I gave him the route because he told me Helena was meeting someone to sell our family’s records.”
“You believed him?”
“I was angry. I wanted Malcolm to frighten her. I did not know he planned to force her car off the road.”
Helena stared at him.
“You never asked.”
“I have regretted it every day.”
“That did not give me my life back.”
Thomas reached for the pistol.
I kicked it farther away.
Federal agents restrained him.
Before they pulled him to his feet, Thomas looked at my mother.
“Tell her the rest.”
Helena’s expression became guarded.
“What rest?” I asked.
May you like
Thomas smiled through the pain.
“Ask her why Grant Holloway was at the crash site before the police arrived.”
