“And the attack?”
Ramona’s mouth tightened.
“That’s harder. Men with no names. No clear faces. A message carried secondhand. Hollis could deny it.”
Bryn sat near the stove, one hand on her belly.
“He won’t just deny it,” she said. “He’ll make Caleb look like the problem.”
Ramona nodded.
“That’s why we need someone inside that house.”
The call came on the sixth day.
Bryn’s prepaid phone rang while we were eating beans and cornbread at the table. Only two living people had that number.
She answered, listened, and went pale.
Then she put the phone on speaker.
Her mother’s voice came through low and steady.
“I know he’s hurt,” Carolyn said. “I know where the money went. And I know things none of you know.”
No one moved.
“The Hilltop Diner in Carsonville,” she continued. “Thursday. Eleven in the morning. I’ll come alone.”
Then, after a pause, she added something I will never forget.
“I’ve been alone in this for a long time.”
Ramona did not trust it.
That was her nature, and thank God for it.
She considered every possibility: trap, leverage, fear, guilt, manipulation. In the end, we chose the diner because it had windows on three sides, two exits, and a parking lot where no one could hide much of anything.
Ramona arrived early and sat in a corner with biscuits and a newspaper, looking like any retired woman killing time over coffee.
I walked in at eleven sharp.
Carolyn Vane sat in the back booth wearing a plain gray coat, no jewelry, both hands wrapped around a mug that had long gone cold.
She looked smaller than I remembered.
Not weak.
Worn down.
Like a woman who had spent twenty years living inside a house where every door locked from the outside.
I slid into the booth across from her.
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then she reached into her bag and placed a green ledger book on the table.
Beside it, she set a thumb drive.
“I know about the fund,” she said.
Her voice was steady, but her hands shook.
“I found the first statements two years ago while looking for insurance papers. I photographed what I could. I kept copies in a safe deposit box under my maiden name.”
I looked down at the ledger.
“Why now?”
Her eyes lifted to mine.
“Because now I know about your son.”
There it was.
Not guilt.
Not entirely.
Recognition.