They hauled him out into the flashing red and blue lights of the cruiser. I stood in my living room, the shattered glass at my feet, and watched the police car drive away into the night.
But as Miriam clapped a hand on my shoulder in victory, Detective Harris walked back through the front door, holding a small, heavy brass key.
“Kate,” the detective said, her brow deeply furrowed. “We used the key to open the wall safe in the master bedroom to log the original property deed into evidence.”
“And?” I asked, a sudden chill washing over me.
“It’s empty,” Harris said grimly. “The deed is gone. And someone wiped the security cameras ten minutes before you arrived.”
The missing deed didn’t save Benjamin Sterling.
The following morning, it arrived via certified mail at Miriam’s office, alongside a handwritten note from Maya. She had taken it from the safe during the chaos of the party setup, terrified Ben might find a way to destroy it before the police arrived. She surrendered it as a gesture of goodwill, before boarding a bus with her children back to her sister’s cramped apartment in Ohio, out of my life forever.
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