Chapter 12 - The Road Thomas Died On
Jennie swallowed.
“Yes.”
Rosie smiled.
“Thomas wanted a grandbaby.”
Jennie broke then.
She lowered her head into her mother’s lap and cried quietly while Rosie stroked her hair.
Five minutes later, Rosie called her Margaret again.
The window closed.
Jennie left with the fragments she had been given.
Outside, the two Sterling guards stood when she entered the lobby.
Jennie looked at them.
“Who do you report to?”
One answered.
“Mr. Kai Sterling.”
“Directly?”
“Yes.”
“Not Sterling Holdings?”
“No, ma’am.”
That mattered.
Kai had lost executive authority but had kept private protection around Rosie.
He had not told Jennie.
She drove north using county roads instead of the interstate.
Blue road.
Thomas’s safe routes.
She found the abandoned weigh station after dark.
It sat beside an old freight corridor, fenced and overgrown.
The state had closed it five years earlier.
Jennie parked behind a concrete barrier.
She had copied Thomas’s dash-camera videos to her laptop.
One file contained GPS coordinates ending near this location.
The video showed the last forty-six minutes of her father’s life.
Jennie had avoided watching it.
Now she pressed play.
Thomas drove through rain.
His voice occasionally spoke into the cab recorder.
“Black Escalade still behind me.”
“Same plate as last week.”
“Edward says do not trust the lab courier.”
“Meeting K.S. at north station.”
Twenty minutes later, another vehicle appeared ahead.
A Sterling Medical truck.
It slowed deliberately.
Thomas tried to pass.
The black Escalade moved alongside him.
Jennie leaned closer to the screen.
The passenger window lowered.
Samuel Voss sat inside.
Alive four years ago.
The driver’s face was partially visible.
Jennie paused the video.
She zoomed in.
Not Malcolm.
Not Marcus.
A woman.
Silver hair.
Beatrice Sterling.
Jennie stopped breathing.
At eighty-six, Beatrice had been driving the vehicle herself.
The dash camera recorded the Escalade moving closer to Thomas’s truck.
Thomas cursed.
The Sterling Medical truck ahead braked suddenly.
Thomas swerved.
The trailer fishtailed.
The camera spun.
Metal screamed.
Then darkness.
Jennie covered her mouth.
Her father’s crash had not been an accident.
The video did not show Beatrice physically striking the truck, but it showed coordinated vehicles boxing Thomas in moments before he lost control.
It was enough to reopen questions.
Maybe enough for prosecutors.
The recording continued after impact.
The camera lay sideways.
Rain streaked the cracked windshield.
Thomas groaned.
He was alive.
Jennie’s entire body went rigid.
Footsteps approached.
A door opened.
Samuel’s voice.
“He is breathing.”
Then Beatrice.
“Find the ledger.”
Jennie felt sick.
Thomas coughed.
“You will not keep him childless forever.”
Beatrice answered.
“I only need to keep him childless long enough.”
“Long enough for what?” Thomas asked.
Beatrice’s voice became colder.
“For the company to become mine beyond challenge.”
Thomas laughed weakly.
“It will never be yours.”
A third voice arrived.
Marcus Vale.
“Call an ambulance.”
Beatrice snapped at him.
“Find the ledger.”
“He needs help.”
“So help him find the ledger.”
Thomas groaned again.
Marcus said, “Thomas, where is it?”
“Go to hell.”
Then another vehicle approached.
Everyone became quiet.
Edward’s voice shouted from a distance.
“Thomas!”
Samuel cursed.
Beatrice said, “We leave now.”
Doors slammed.
The Escalade drove away.
Edward reached the cab.
The video captured only his shoes.
“Stay with me.”
Thomas’s voice was weak.
“You finally grew a spine.”
“I called 911.”
“Too late.”
“No.”
“Listen to me.”
Thomas coughed.
“Blue saints.”
“Locker four-eighteen.”
“Get it to Jennie if I do not.”
“I will.”
“Do not let Sterling touch her.”
Edward said something too soft to hear.
Thomas spoke one final clear sentence.
“Kai does not know.”
The audio ended three minutes later.
Jennie sat in her parked car, shaking.
Edward had lied by omission.
But he had not caused the crash.
He had tried to save Thomas.
Beatrice had been there.
Marcus had been there.
Samuel had been there.
The truth was finally visible.
Jennie copied the video to an encrypted cloud account, then to a second drive she taped beneath the spare tire compartment.
She called the detective who had interviewed her.
Before he answered, headlights appeared behind the abandoned weigh station.
A black Escalade rolled slowly through the gate.
Jennie’s blood went cold.
The vehicle stopped fifty feet away.
The driver’s door opened.
Kai stepped out.
Jennie stared.
He had told her not to contact him.
He had signed papers against her.
Now he had followed her to the exact road where her father died.
Then the passenger door opened.
Malcolm Sterling stepped out beside him.
Jennie’s hand tightened around the hard drive.
From where she sat, it looked as though Kai had brought the enemy directly to her.
Jennie kept the engine running.
Kai stood in the rain beside the black Escalade.
Malcolm stood three feet to his right.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Jennie’s phone remained in her hand with the detective’s number on the screen.
She pressed call and lowered the phone beside the seat without speaking.
If the detective answered, he would hear whatever happened next.
Jennie opened her door.
Kai’s eyes flicked toward her hand.
He noticed the phone.
His expression did not change.
Malcolm smiled.
“I was beginning to think you would stay in the car all night.”
Jennie stepped into the rain.
“What are you doing here?”
Malcolm answered before Kai could.
“Recovering stolen property.”
Jennie looked at Kai.
“Is that what you told him?”
Kai’s voice was cold.
“Give me the drive.”
Her stomach tightened.
“You know about it.”
“Anna Vale gave you something before she disappeared.”
“You were listening.”
“Yes.”
“Then you heard her tell me not to give it to a Sterling employee.”
“I am no longer a Sterling employee.”
Malcolm laughed.
“Kai.”
Kai ignored him.
“Jennie, give me the drive.”
She stared at him.
The man standing in front of her looked exactly like the man from the board meeting.
Controlled.
Distant.
Impossible to read.
“You denied our child this morning.”
Malcolm’s smile widened slightly.
Kai did not react.
“You signed a breach review against me.”
“I did.”
“You let Marcus Vale call me a criminal.”
“I did.”
“And now you bring Malcolm to the place where my father died.”
Kai’s eyes sharpened.
“You should not have come here.”
“That line is getting old.”
“Give me the drive.”
“No.”
Malcolm stepped forward.
“This does not need to become dramatic.”
Jennie laughed.
“You framed an ICU nurse for selling narcotics records and you want less drama?”
Malcolm’s face hardened.
“I did not frame you.”
“Graham switched the paternity kits in a Sterling courier truck.”
For the first time, Malcolm’s expression changed.
Kai’s did not.
Jennie knew then that Kai had not known about the video.
Good.
She still had something neither man controlled.
Malcolm recovered quickly.
“You have no proof.”
“I watched him do it.”
“On what?”
Jennie smiled.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Malcolm looked at Kai.
“You said she had the drive.”
Kai’s answer was flat.
“She does.”
Jennie felt anger flash.
“You really did bring him here for me.”
Kai met her eyes.
“Yes.”
The word hurt.
Then he added, “Because he would not come without believing I had already broken you.”
Malcolm turned.
Too late.
Kai moved fast.
He seized Malcolm’s wrist before Malcolm could reach inside his coat.
A second vehicle roared from behind the weigh station.
Samuel Voss jumped from the passenger side.
Jennie stepped backward.
Kai shoved Malcolm against the Escalade.
“Run!”
The mask dropped.
The cold voice.
The public betrayal.
The black Escalade.
Kai had been baiting Malcolm.
Jennie did not run.
Samuel rushed Kai from the side.
Jennie grabbed the metal tire iron from her open trunk and struck the pavement in front of Samuel hard enough to make him stop short.
“Try me.”
Samuel stared at her.
“You are pregnant.”
“Then you should be embarrassed if I put you on the ground.”
He lunged for the hard drive bag instead.
Jennie swung the tire iron into his forearm.
He cursed and grabbed her sleeve.
Kai released Malcolm and slammed Samuel away from her.
Malcolm ran toward the second vehicle.
Headlights appeared at the gate.
A police siren sounded.
The detective had heard enough.
Samuel broke free and sprinted into the dark field behind the station.
Malcolm reached his car but froze when two unmarked police vehicles blocked the exit.
Detectives stepped out with weapons drawn but low.
“Hands where we can see them.”
Malcolm lifted his hands slowly.
His expression remained almost bored.
“You have no cause to detain me.”
The detective from Jennie’s hospital interview approached.
“I heard you come to recover a drive from a woman you have accused of criminal misconduct.”
Malcolm smiled.
“A family property dispute.”
“Then you can explain it downtown.”
Malcolm’s attorney arrived by phone before the cuffs did.
Within forty minutes, he was released from temporary detention because no warrant yet connected him directly to the planted evidence or Thomas’s death.
Jennie watched his Escalade leave.
“This is why people stop trusting systems.”
The detective looked tired.
“I did not say we were finished.”
Jennie gave him a copy of the dash-camera video, not the original.
She also gave him the clip showing Graham and Marcus Vale switching the collection kits.
His expression changed with each minute of footage.
“This should have been in my hands earlier.”
Jennie stared at him.
“With respect, Detective, twelve people with credentials have lied to me this week.”
He accepted the answer.
“Keep your originals secure.”
“I intend to.”
When police left, only Jennie and Kai remained beneath the weigh station lights.
Rain tapped against the broken roof.
Kai’s cheek was bruised where Samuel had struck him.
Jennie did not ask if he was all right.
He did not ask her to forgive him.
Good.
Neither was ready for the wrong conversation.
“You used me,” she said.
Kai looked at her.
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt more than denial.
“You signed those papers so Malcolm would believe you chose the trust over me.”
“Yes.”
“You opened a breach review so Graham would think I was isolated.”
“Yes.”
“You told me to leave Chicago because Malcolm was listening.”
“Yes.”
“You could have warned me before the board meeting.”
“No.”
Jennie’s anger ignited.
“No?”
“I could not risk it.”
“That was not your decision to make.”
Kai’s face tightened.
“If Malcolm believed you knew, he would have changed the plan.”
“Then let him change the plan.”
“We needed him to move.”
“You needed him to move.”
“Do not use we now.”
Kai went silent.
Jennie stepped closer.
“You let the entire country watch you refuse to acknowledge our child.”
May you like
“I know.”
On the same road where Thomas died, Jennie saw Kai arrive beside the man she believed had helped destroy him.
