Chapter 7 - The Price of Being Chosen Too Late
Preston survived.
The bullet struck his left shoulder.
A second round grazed his ribs.
Gavin escaped through the truck depot before tactical officers closed the perimeter.
For twelve minutes, police believed he had gotten away.
Then a K-9 unit found him hiding beneath a freight trailer.
He was arrested with a pistol, two burner phones, and my father’s old business card in his wallet.
When Detective Ruiz called the safe house, I didn’t ask about Preston first.
I asked about Gavin.
“Alive,” she said.
“Good.”
Ruiz understood.
Dead men escaped courtrooms.
I wanted Gavin Mercer sitting beneath fluorescent lights while prosecutors read every name connected to the fires he had turned into profit.
My father deserved that.
The Blackridge families deserved it.
I deserved it.
“What about Preston?” I finally asked.
“Surgery.”
“Will he live?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
Relief came automatically.
I hated that.
You could stop trusting someone long before your body stopped caring whether they died.
The human heart was humiliating that way.
Gavin began talking less than twenty-four hours after his arrest.
Not because he was remorseful.
Because he wanted a deal.
He blamed Khloe for everything.
The wedding fire.
The hospital intrusion.
My father.
The financial fraud.
According to him, Khloe had been the mastermind.
According to Khloe, if police ever caught her, I was sure Gavin would become the mastermind.
Cowards loved shared crimes until prison sentences became real.
But some of Gavin’s information checked out.
Marcus Vane had poured gasoline through the east service corridor.
He had jammed my bridal-room door.
Khloe had given him my schedule.
The plan was for Vane to start a controlled fire after retrieving Dad’s evidence from the bracelet.
But he could not locate the hidden pearl.
So Khloe took the entire bracelet.
Then she heard my bridesmaid returning.
She ran out before searching it.
Vane started the fire anyway.
“Why?” I asked Ruiz.
“Gavin says they believed the evidence would be destroyed if you died.”
“That makes no sense. The bracelet was with Khloe.”
“They didn’t know the microSD pearl had fallen off.”
Wyatt’s turnout coat had saved more than my life.
Khloe had wanted me dead because she believed I might know what Dad discovered.
And because, according to Gavin, “Khloe wanted Preston free.”
Free.
As if I were a chain around his ankle instead of the woman planning to spend her life with him.
Detective Ruiz slid another transcript toward me.
“Gavin says the affair began after Khloe intentionally created a crisis.”
“Which one?”
“Her overdose.”
I remembered.
Eleven months earlier, Khloe took too many sleeping pills after a breakup.
Preston found her.
Stayed at the hospital all night.
Visited every day that week.
I brought them coffee.
The stupidity of that memory almost made me laugh.
“She overdosed on purpose?”
“Not enough to kill herself. Enough to get his attention.”
“And then?”
“You probably don’t want every detail.”
“No. I really don’t.”
For once, I let someone protect me from something.
Preston woke after surgery asking for me.
The nurse told him nothing.
Then he asked for Detective Ruiz.
When she arrived, he made one request.
“Let me see Tara’s personal effects.”
Ruiz asked why.
“I need to know what was recovered.”
“From the fire?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Her wedding ring.”
My hand moved instinctively toward my left ring finger.
The ring wasn’t there.
Doctors had removed it because of swelling.
Ruiz had placed it in the safe house evidence box.
Preston continued.
“She deserves to be buried with it.”
I turned away from the surveillance monitor.
Enough.
“I don’t want to watch this anymore.”
Ruiz closed the feed.
The following morning, the investigation gave us something unexpected.
Khloe contacted a funeral home.
Mine.
The memorial had been scheduled for Saturday because Preston still believed there would be no immediate public viewing.
Khloe called asking whether she could deliver a dress for my burial.
A dress.
For me.
The funeral director notified police.
Detective Ruiz listened to the recorded call three times.
Then smiled.
“She wants access.”
“To what?”
“Your belongings. Your coffin. The funeral home. Something.”
“So we let her.”
Ruiz looked at me.
“You understand what you’re proposing?”
“Yes.”
“You want to use your own funeral as a trap?”
“Yes.”
Wyatt stared at me.
“That is one of the craziest sentences I’ve heard.”
“Then you’ve had a boring week.”
The plan formed quickly.
The memorial would proceed.
Friends.
Firefighters.
Family.
Press outside.
An empty closed casket inside.
Police would watch every entrance.
My aunt Rebecca finally learned I was alive twenty-four hours before the funeral.
Her reaction was not elegant.
She slapped Detective Ruiz.
Then slapped me.
Then hugged me so carefully around my burns that she started sobbing.
“Never do that to me again.”
“I didn’t exactly plan it.”
“You let me choose funeral flowers!”
“I’m sorry.”
“You made me pick lilies. I hate lilies.”
I started laughing.
So did she.
Then we cried together until neither of us could speak.
Saturday morning, St. Andrew’s Church filled with people.
I watched from a private room in the building across the street.
The livestream showed rows of firefighters in dress uniforms.
My coworkers.
Neighbors.
People from high school I hadn’t seen in fifteen years.
Preston entered last.
His left arm was in a sling.
He wore his dress uniform without captain’s bars.
The department had formally removed him from command pending final review.
He walked toward my casket alone.
Khloe was nowhere in sight.
For several minutes, Preston stood beside the closed lid.
Then he placed something on top.
My veil.
Recovered from the hospital.
He touched the wood with his uninjured hand.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
The microphone near the flowers picked it up.
“I loved being forgiven by you more than I loved deserving you.”
My throat closed.
That was the first apology he had given me that sounded like he understood the actual problem.
Not the affair.
Not even the fire.
He had built our relationship around my willingness to understand.
And called that love.
Preston continued.
“I kept thinking strength meant you needed less from me.”
He swallowed.
“I was wrong.”
I looked away.
Aunt Rebecca squeezed my hand.
“You don’t owe him anything.”
“I know.”
“Knowing is different from feeling.”
“I know that too.”
The service began.
Khloe appeared twelve minutes later.
Black dress.
Dark glasses.
Hair pinned neatly beneath a small hat.
She walked into my funeral looking like a widow.
The audacity took my breath away.
She sat in the last row.
Preston didn’t see her.
Detective Ruiz did.
So did every plainclothes officer inside.
Khloe waited through the eulogy.
Through the hymns.
Through my aunt speaking about the little girl who used to bring home injured birds.
Then, during the final prayer, Khloe slipped out.
Ruiz spoke into her radio.
“Do not move yet.”
Khloe entered the funeral home annex through a side door.
A camera followed.
She moved through a preparation corridor.
Opened one storage room.
Then another.
Finally she found the secured cabinet containing the items supposedly recovered from my hospital room.
Police had placed duplicates there.
My phone.
My purse.
A burned piece of my gown.
And an evidence envelope containing a replica of the pearl microSD.
Khloe took it.
“Got her,” Wyatt whispered.
But Ruiz did not move.
“Wait.”
Khloe pulled out her phone and called someone.
A man answered.
Marcus Vane.
Still free.
“I have it,” Khloe said.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“And Hale?”
“Broken.”
My stomach turned.
“Good.”
Khloe smiled.
“He always comes back to me.”
Then Vane said, “Meet me at the old training house.”
Ruiz pointed toward the tactical team.
“Now.”
Officers entered the corridor.
“Khloe Mercer! Police!”
Khloe spun.
For one perfect second, pure terror crossed her face.
Then she ran.
A side exit slammed open.
She reached the alley.
Jumped into a black SUV.
And accelerated directly toward an officer.
The officer rolled aside.
The SUV smashed through a gate.
Police vehicles followed.
I watched the tracker move across the map.
West.
Then north.
Toward an abandoned fire-training facility outside Arvada.
Detective Ruiz cursed.
“She’s leading us to Vane.”
“Then follow her.”
“We are.”
I stood.
Wyatt looked at me.
“No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I want to go.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Khloe killed my father.”
“She’ll kill you too.”
“She already tried.”
“That is not an argument for giving her another chance.”
I stared at the map.
Then my phone rang.
My private number.
Only five people had it.
I answered.
Silence.
Then Khloe’s voice.
“You’re alive.”
Nobody moved.
Detective Ruiz motioned for the trace team.
I whispered, “Surprised?”
Khloe breathed into the phone.
“I knew it.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“You should have stayed dead.”
My skin went cold.
She continued.
“Tell Preston to come to the old training house.”
“Why?”
“Because he owes me.”
“He owes you nothing.”
Khloe laughed.
“He chose me once.”
I looked through the window toward the church where Preston still stood beside my empty coffin.
“Yes,” I said.
“And that destroyed his life.”
Her voice sharpened.
“Tell him to come alone.”
“Or what?”
A pause.
Then another voice cried out in the background.
A child.
“Help!”
Detective Ruiz’s face changed.
May you like
Khloe whispered, “Or somebody else burns.”
And the call ended.
