Chapter 7 - Evelyn’s Flight
Forty-eight hours after the gala disaster, Evelyn Whittaker was released on a temporary signature bond, pending her formal trial for corporate fraud.
She knew her time was up.
At 2:00 a.m. on a rainy Tuesday morning, Evelyn stood in the hanger of a small private airfield on the outskirts of Chicago. She was wearing a dark hoodie, clutching a leather duffel bag packed with two million dollars worth of unregistered physical bearer bonds and stolen gold coins she had managed to retrieve from a secret safety deposit box.
A charter pilot stood near a twin-engine plane, waiting for her signal.
"Hurry up!" Evelyn hissed to the pilot, checking her watch nervously. "I paid you double! Take off now!"
"Going somewhere, Evelyn?" a voice called out from the shadows of the hanger.
Evelyn spun around, dropping her duffel bag onto the wet concrete.
I walked out from the shadow of a fuel truck, accompanied by Detective Miller and three armed state troopers.
"Nora..." Evelyn gasped, backing away toward the plane stairs. "How did you... how did you find me?!"
"You used the family's secondary private flight account," I said, holding up a sleek black tablet. "The account that alerts my phone every time a flight plan is filed. Did you really think I wouldn't track the woman who poisoned my childhood?"
"I didn't poison anything!" Evelyn screamed, her sanity fraying at the edges. "I survived! I did what I had to do to protect my daughter! Your father was a weak, pathetic fool who believed whatever I told him! He deserved to be cheated!"
"And what about my mother?" I asked, taking a step closer, my eyes burning with dark intensity. "What did you do to her?"
Evelyn froze. Her eyes darted wildly toward the open runway.
"We pulled the medical logs from fifteen years ago, Evelyn," Detective Miller said, stepping forward with his gun lowered but ready. "Victoria Vance-Whittaker’s toxicology reports were altered. We obtained a warrant to exhume her remains yesterday morning."
Evelyn’s face turned an inhuman shade of pale. "No... no, you can't... that was fifteen years ago! The statute—"
"There is no statute of limitations on murder, Evelyn," Miller cut her off firmly.
Evelyn let out a sharp, animalistic shriek and tried to dash up the stairs of the private plane. But the state troopers were faster. They tackled her onto the wet hanger floor, pinning her hands behind her back as she kicked and screamed, her leather duffel bag spilling gold coins across the dark pavement.
I stood in the rain, watching as they snapped the heavy iron cuffs onto her wrists.
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"You’ll go to hell for this, Nora!" Evelyn screamed, her face smeared with dirt and rainwater as they dragged her toward a police cruiser. "YOU’LL GO TO HELL!"
"I’ve already been there, Evelyn," I whispered into the wind. "You raised me in it."
