Chapter 6
The car went dead silent.
I stared at the phone, my hands shaking, the stock certificate slipping from my fingers onto the seat.
Helen was out.
Two guards dead.
Armed.
Dangerous.
And she knew exactly where I lived.
Exactly where Lila went to school.
Exactly who I loved.
Chloe saw my face.
“What?” she said, grabbing the phone from my hand.
She read the headline and screamed.
A sharp, terrified sound.
Margaret looked up from the backseat, Lila still in her arms, her face going pale.
“What is it?” she said. “What’s wrong?”
Chloe handed her the phone.
Margaret read it, her jaw tightening, her arms wrapping tighter around Lila.
“Elias,” I said, fumbling for my phone, my voice barely a whisper. “Call Elias. Call Detective Carter. Call everyone. Now.”
Chloe was already dialing.
I pulled the car over to the side of the road, my hands shaking too bad to drive.
We locked all the doors.
We sat there, huddled together, waiting for the police to arrive, every passing car making us jump.
Detective Carter showed up ten minutes later with six uniformed officers and two unmarked cars.
She took one look at our faces and knew.
“You saw the alert,” she said.
I nodded.
“She’s going to come after me,” I said. “After Lila. She has nothing left to lose now. She’s going to try to finish what she started at the construction yard.”
Detective Carter nodded, her face grim.
“We’re assuming that’s exactly what she’ll do,” she said. “I’ve already put a twenty-four-hour security detail on your house, your office, Lila’s new school, all of your family members. Every road in and out of the city is being watched. Every airport, train station, bus terminal. We have every officer in three states looking for her. We’ll find her, Mia. I promise. But until we do, I need you to be very, very careful. No going anywhere alone. No opening the door for anyone. If you see anything suspicious—anything at all—you call 911 immediately. Understood?”
I nodded.
“Understood.”
She assigned two officers to ride with us back to the house.
Another four were already there, patrolling the perimeter, checking every window and door.
I carried Lila inside, still sleeping, exhausted from the long day at the courthouse.
I put her to bed, then sat on the edge of her mattress for a long time, just watching her breathe, brushing the hair off her face, promising myself over and over that I would never let anyone hurt her again.
The next week was the longest of my life.
Helen was everywhere and nowhere.
The police found her abandoned transport van on the edge of the city, burned to the ground, the two dead guards inside.
They found sightings of her at a gas station an hour north.
At a diner two hours west.
At a convenience store across the state line.
But every time they got close, she was gone.
Vanished into thin air.
She was smart.
She had money.
Twenty-seven million dollars, remember?
Even with most of the accounts frozen, she’d had the foresight to stash hundreds of thousands in cash in safe deposit boxes all over the state under fake names.
She could buy anything.
Anyone.
New identity.
New car.
New weapons.
The police said she was probably long gone by now.
Probably in Mexico or Canada, starting a new life.
I didn’t believe it.
Neither did Detective Carter.
Helen wasn’t a runner.
She was a fighter.
And she’d made it very clear, over and over, that if she couldn’t have what she wanted, no one could.
She was still here.
Waiting.
Watching.
Planning.
I doubled security.
Four guards at the house at all times.
Two with me everywhere I went.
Two at Lila’s school.
I installed bulletproof windows.
A state-of-the-art alarm system.
A safe room in the basement, stocked with food, water, and a direct line to the police.
I stopped going to the Langford office.
I ran the company from my house, over video calls, Elias bringing me whatever I needed.
Ethan moved into the guest room permanently.
Said he wasn’t going anywhere until Helen was caught.
Margaret moved in too.
Said she wasn’t going to let her great-granddaughter grow up without her, not after she’d already missed ten years.
The house was full of people, full of noise, full of love.
But I couldn’t relax.
I couldn’t sleep.
Every creak of the house, every car that drove down the street, every shadow in the yard made my heart race.
I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
And drop it did.
Two weeks after the escape.
I was in my home office, going over Langford’s quarterly earnings report, when my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered, my hand already reaching for the panic button under my desk.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then Helen’s voice.
Soft.
Calm.
Completely insane.
“Hello, Mia,” she said. “Did you miss me?”
My blood turned to ice.
“Helen,” I said, pressing the panic button. “Where are you?”
“Oh, I’m close,” she said, laughing a little. “So close. I can see your house. I can see the guards walking around the perimeter. I can see the lights on in Lila’s bedroom. She’s reading a bedtime story with Margaret, isn’t she? The one about the three little pigs? She always loved that one.”
I stood up, running to the window, looking out into the dark yard.
Nothing.
Just trees and shadows and the guards pacing.
“What do you want, Helen?” I said, my voice tight. “It’s over. You lost. Everything you ever wanted is gone. Just turn yourself in. It’s the only chance you have.”
“Turn myself in?” she said, laughing louder now, a sharp, brittle sound. “And spend the rest of my life in a cell with a bunch of animals who’d kill me for my shoes? No, thank you. I have a better plan.”
She paused.
“You took everything from me, Mia. My husband. My money. My freedom. My reputation. My granddaughter. So I’m going to take everything from you. One by one. Slowly. Painfully. And I’m going to make you watch. Starting tomorrow. At the grand opening of the new Langford Children’s Hospital.”
My breath caught.
The hospital.
We’d spent the last three months planning it.
A brand-new, state-of-the-art children’s hospital, built with Langford money, named after Lila.
The grand opening was tomorrow at noon.
Two thousand people were coming.
Politicians.
Celebrities.
Reporters.
Hundreds of sick kids and their families.
Lila was going to cut the ribbon.
It was supposed to be the happiest day of our lives.
The culmination of everything I’d fought for.
A place where kids like Lila could get the best care in the world, for free, no matter how much money their parents had.
And Helen was planning to ruin it.
Or worse.
“You wouldn’t dare,” I whispered. “There will be hundreds of kids there. Babies. Sick kids. You’d hurt them?”
“Kids get hurt every day,” she said, her voice cold. “It’s a hospital. People die there all the time. No one will be surprised. No one will suspect a thing until it’s too late. And when the dust clears? Everyone will know it was your fault. That you built a hospital that killed children. That you’re just as much of a monster as I am. You’ll lose everything. The company. The respect. The love. And you’ll spend the rest of your life knowing your pride killed all those innocent kids. It’s perfect, isn’t it? Poetic, really.”
I heard a soft beep in the background.
A timer.
Counting down.
“I’ve got to go now, Mia,” she said, her voice cheerful. “I have a lot to do before tomorrow. Get a good night’s sleep. You’re going to need it. And give Lila a kiss from her grandma. Tell her I’ll see her soon. Very soon.”
She hung up.
The police were at the door in ninety seconds.
Elias was ten minutes behind them, with the entire Langford security team.
The bomb squad arrived twenty minutes after that.
I told them everything Helen had said.
About the hospital.
About the timer.
About the kids.
They evacuated the hospital site immediately.
Every floor.
Every room.
The bomb squad swept the entire building, room by room, closet by closet, pipe by pipe.
They worked all night.
By five in the morning, they’d found nothing.
No bombs.
No explosives.
No timers.
Nothing.
The lead bomb tech came over to where I was standing, wrapped in a blanket, drinking cold coffee, watching the sun come up over the hospital.
“Sorry, Mia,” he said. “We went over every inch of that building with a fine-tooth comb. Twice. There’s nothing there. No bombs. No threats. It was probably just a scare tactic. She wants you to cancel the opening. Wants to make you look weak, scared, paranoid. If you cancel, she wins. Even if there’s nothing there.”
Detective Carter nodded.
“He’s right,” she said. “We’ll have fifty officers there tomorrow. Bomb-sniffing dogs. Snipers on the roofs. Everyone who comes in goes through a metal detector and a bag search. No one gets within a hundred feet of the building without being checked twice. It’ll be the safest place in the whole state tomorrow. You should go through with it. Don’t let her win.”
I looked at the hospital.
Big.
Beautiful.
Covered in balloons and banners that said “LILA’S PLACE: WHERE KIDS GET BETTER.”
I thought about all the sick kids who were supposed to come tomorrow.
Who’d been waiting for months for this hospital to open.
Who needed it.
I thought about Lila, asleep at home, so proud of “her hospital,” so excited to cut the ribbon, so excited to meet all the kids who’d get better there.
I thought about Helen.
Laughing at me, somewhere in the dark, thinking she’d scared me off.
“Okay,” I said. “We go through with it. But we do it my way. No public entrance. Everyone comes through the underground parking garage, one car at a time, searched before they even get out of the vehicle. No exceptions. Not even the mayor. And I want snipers on every roof within three blocks. I want plainclothes officers in every crowd. I want every single person who works at that hospital, every contractor, every volunteer, run through a full background check before they set foot on the property. If there’s even a hint of something wrong, they don’t get in. Understood?”
Detective Carter nodded.
“Understood.”
The next twelve hours were a blur of activity.
Every plan was changed.
Every security measure doubled.
By 11:00 a.m., the hospital was surrounded.
By 11:30, the guests started arriving, one car at a time, searched, cleared, escorted inside.
By 11:55, everyone was there.
Two thousand people.
All safe.
All searched.
All cleared.
No bombs.
No threats.
No Helen.
I stood on the stage in front of the hospital, Lila in my arms, Margaret on one side, Chloe, Ethan, and Elias on the other, the mayor beside me, waiting for noon.
Lila was wearing a little white dress, her hair in pigtails, holding a giant pair of red scissors, bouncing up and down with excitement.
She had no idea how close we’d come to canceling.
No idea how scared I’d been all night.
She just knew it was her special day.
“Five more minutes, baby,” I whispered, kissing her cheek.
“Yay!” she yelled, making the crowd laugh.
I looked out over the sea of faces.
Happy faces.
Excited faces.
Grateful faces.
I looked at the snipers on the roofs.
At the plainclothes officers scattered through the crowd.
At the uniformed officers at every door.
Everything was fine.
Helen had been bluffing.
She’d wanted to scare me.
Wanted me to cancel.
Wanted me to look like a fool.
Well, she’d failed.
The mayor started his speech.
Five minutes.
Four.
Three.
I relaxed, just a little.
And then I felt it.
A vibration in my pocket.
My phone.
A text.
From the same unknown number.
I pulled it out, keeping a smile on my face so no one in the crowd would notice.
The text was a photo.
Taken from the roof of the building across the street.
Looking straight down at the stage.
At me.
At Lila.
Followed by one sentence.
You really should have checked the foundation.
I looked up, fast, at the roof across the street.
Nothing.
And then I felt it.
A low rumble.
Deep under the ground.
Getting louder.
Getting closer.
The crowd went quiet.
People started looking around, confused.
The mayor stopped talking.
May you like
The rumble turned into a roar.
And then the ground in front of the main entrance of the hospital exploded.
