Chapter 3 - THE PRICE OF SURVIVAL
"What do you want, Victoria?" I snapped, gripping the edge of the kitchen table so hard my knuckles turned white.
"Let’s not play games, dear," Victoria replied smoothly, the sound of crystal clinking against porcelain suggesting she was sipping morning tea in some sunlit Beverly Hills atrium while my world was collapsing. "You have something that belongs to my husband—or rather, my legal property. Bring the USB drive, the note, and the license to the fountain at Griffith Park in two hours. Come alone. No police, no friends, no little girls."
"And if I refuse?" I challenged, my voice shaking with a mix of fury and terror.
"If you refuse, I’ll release a different kind of file to the public," Victoria said softly. "Let’s see how long an unemployed single mother in Reseda can fight off federal charges for wire fraud, identity theft, and extortion. Oh, and custody of Chloe? Family court judges tend to look very unfavorably on felons. You’ll never see your daughter again."
The line went dead with a sharp click.
I lowered the phone slowly, my chest heaving. She had me trapped. Every institutional power—money, law enforcement, legal systems—was skewed in her favor. If I went to the police, she had them in her pocket. If I ran, she had the resources to hunt us down to the ends of the earth.
Think, Sarah, think, I scolded myself, pacing the narrow length of the kitchen.
There had to be a loophole. Harrison said Rachel Collins had an old criminal partner from her days in Arkansas—someone she had betrayed, someone who had gone to prison while she walked away a millionaire. If that person was still alive, they might be the key to bringing her down.
I opened the laptop again, ignoring the remaining video files for a moment, and opened a search engine. I typed in the name Rachel Collins, Arkansas, embezzlement, 2014.
Page after page of local court archives loaded. I scrolled past the glossy society pages of Beverly Hills and dug deep into old, digitized court records from a small-town gazette in Pulaski County, Arkansas.
There it was.
Trial of State v. Collins & Miller.
In 2014, Rachel Collins and a man named Thomas Miller were indicted for a multi-million-dollar insurance scam. While Rachel’s charges were mysteriously dropped due to "insufficient evidence" and a cooperating witness who vanished, Thomas Miller was sentenced to twelve years in a maximum-security federal penitentiary in Missouri.
Twelve years. That meant Thomas Miller had either just been released or was nearing the end of his sentence.
I checked the release registries. Thomas Miller: Released on parole six months ago.
My heart hammered against my ribs. If Thomas Miller hated Rachel Collins as much as he should—after taking the fall while she stole the money and built an empire—he might be our only salvation.
But I didn't have time to track down an ex-con in Missouri. Victoria’s deadline was ticking down. Griffith Park, two hours.
I needed a plan. I couldn't just hand over the only insurance policy keeping Harrison and us alive. But I couldn't walk into a trap unarmed, either.
I grabbed my jacket, stuffed the original thumb drive into the lining of my coat, and created a dummy USB drive loaded with random corrupted files. Then, I pulled my old smartphone from a kitchen drawer—an old burner phone I had kept from my college days—and dialed a number I never thought I’d call.
May you like
An old friend from my college journalism days, Marcus Vance, now an investigative reporter for a regional news syndicate, picked up on the third ring.
"Marcus," I whispered urgently before he could even say hello. "I need your help. And if I don't call you back in three hours, publish everything I’m about to email you to the entire world."
