Chapter 12 - Emily Ross
Harper could not forgive herself.
Rebecca tried.
Gabriel tried.
Even Agent Price tried.
None of it mattered.
Emily Ross had come to her door.
Harper had seen fear in another woman’s eyes and looked away because she was already drowning in her own.
“I could have helped her.”
Gabriel stood across the room.
“You did not know.”
“I knew Derek hurt me.”
“You did not know what he did to anyone else.”
“I should have listened.”
Gabriel’s voice sharpened.
“Harper.”
She looked at him.
“You were surviving.”
“So was she.”
“Yes.”
That stopped her.
Gabriel did not tell her she was innocent of every bad decision.
He simply refused to let Derek become innocent because Harper had been afraid.
Agent Price located Emily’s younger sister in New Hampshire.
Her name was Sarah Ross.
She agreed to speak with Harper.
They met in a federal office.
Sarah carried a folder.
The first thing she did was put a photograph on the table.
Emily was smiling beside a lake.
Harper’s chest hurt.
“She was twenty-nine.”
Sarah’s voice was steady.
“She worked as a bartender.”
Harper nodded.
“I remember her.”
Sarah stared at her.
“Emily told me she tried to warn you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She didn’t blame you.”
Harper’s eyes filled.
Sarah opened the folder.
“My sister dated Peter Mills.”
Harper looked toward Agent Price.
“He abused her?”
Sarah nodded.
“She reported him.”
“What happened?”
“The complaint disappeared.”
Of course it did.
“Then Emily started gathering evidence.”
“What kind?”
“Names.”
Sarah pushed a page forward.
Derek Lawson was on it.
Thomas Nolan.
Charles Vane.
Peter Mills.
Another name Harper did not recognize.
Captain Richard Hale.
Agent Price circled it.
“Hale commanded Precinct Twelve six years ago.”
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“When Isabella died.”
“Yes.”
Sarah removed a USB drive.
“Emily gave me this three days before she disappeared.”
Agent Price stared.
“You never gave it to police?”
Sarah laughed bitterly.
“Police?”
Nobody argued.
“I was scared.”
She looked at Harper.
“But I’m tired of being scared.”
Price took the drive.
Its contents changed the investigation overnight.
Audio.
Photographs.
Copies of complaints.
Bank transfers.
One photograph showed Nolan meeting Assistant District Attorney Vane in a parking garage.
Another showed Derek carrying a box from evidence storage.
Then they found a video.
Emily had recorded it through the window of her car.
Derek stood beside Captain Hale.
Their voices were faint.
But one sentence was clear.
“We should have handled Isabella’s brother too.”
Gabriel stopped the video.
Nobody moved.
Harper looked at him.
His face was pale.
Agent Price spoke carefully.
“We can stop.”
“No.”
Gabriel pressed play.
Hale answered.
“Ashford is useful alive.”
Derek laughed.
“Because everybody’s scared of him?”
“No.”
Hale leaned closer.
“Because every dirty dollar in Boston looks believable if his name is attached.”
Gabriel stared at the screen.
The truth landed slowly.
His family’s reputation had not merely hidden the corrupt officers.
They had built an entire criminal system around it.
Every bribe.
Every missing evidence file.
Every threat.
Every business they extorted.
They blamed Gabriel.
Some accusations were true.
Enough were true that the false ones disappeared among them.
Harper understood why Gabriel looked devastated.
He had spent years protecting an empire.
That empire had also protected the men who killed his sister.
The video continued.
Derek asked another question.
“What about the Ross girl?”
Captain Hale’s answer was barely audible.
“Same solution as Isabella.”
Sarah covered her mouth.
Harper closed her eyes.
Agent Price stopped the recording.
Now they knew.
Emily had not run away.
May you like
She had been silenced.
And Derek had known.
