PART 27
The ambulances arrived within minutes,
their red lights cutting through the heavy coastal fog.
Claire was loaded onto a stretcher,
her condition critical but stable.
As they wheeled her away,
she reached out her hand,
and for the first time in over a year,
I took it.
"Thank you,"
I whispered,
squeezing her cold fingers.
She nodded weakly,
her eyes closing as the medication took hold.
Sarah Mitchell stood next to me,
watching the coast guard boats search the black water for Vance’s body.
"They won't find him tonight,"
she said quietly.
"The current is too strong."
"But it doesn't matter."
"The recordings and the ledger are already at the Department of Justice."
"By tomorrow morning,
forty-two arrests will be made across three states."
"The ring is completely broken, Emma."
"You did it."
"No,"
I said,
looking down at the stuffed bear in Noah’s arms as he slept on a gurney inside an ambulance.
"My father did it."
"I just finished it."
The FBI cleared my name entirely of any lingering financial suspicion,
and the media hailed the case as the largest judicial corruption bust in state history.
The six other women,
the victims Ethan had targeted before me,
received their stolen assets back from the frozen accounts.
They called me,
one by one,
to thank me,
to cry with me,
to share their stories of survival.
We were a sisterhood born from betrayal,
united by the same shadow,
but now we were walking into the light.
I drove back to my house the next day,
the sun finally breaking through the gray clouds,
warming the wet pavement.
The black SUV was gone,
the yellow police tape was removed.
May you like
It was just a house again.
My house.
