Chapter 8 - The Shadow of the Waterfront
Within twenty minutes, the fourteenth floor was swarming with federal agents and tactical police.
Garrett Vance was pinned against the conference table, his arms twisted behind his back as heavy steel handcuffs clicked around his wrists. The arrogance that had defined his face for three years was completely stripped away, replaced by the hollow, vacant stare of a cornered rat.
Penelope sat on the floor, wrapped in a coarse police blanket, hyperventilating as two female agents read her rights. When she saw me walking past toward the elevators, she reached out, grabbing the hem of my trousers.
"Rosalind! Please!" she begged, tears streaming down her smeared makeup. "I’m your sister! We share the same father! I’m carrying a baby... your niece or nephew! You can't let them send me to prison! Garrett forced me into it! He threatened me!"
I stopped and looked down at her. I reached down, took her left hand, and smoothly slipped my grandmother’s emerald ring off her trembling finger. I wiped the ring on my lapel and slipped it back onto my own thumb.
"Our father made many mistakes, Penelope," I said, my voice steady and without malice. "Having an affair with your mother was one of them. But you chose to help a murderer drown your own blood for an inheritance you never worked a day to build. The state will provide proper prenatal care in custody. That is the only mercy you will ever receive from me."
I pulled my trousers from her grip and walked out into the corridor.
Tobias stood by the panoramic glass window, watching the sea of flashing blue and red lights ten stories below. For the first time in fifteen years, he didn't have to hunch his shoulders or fake a spasm. He stood tall, looking out over the harbor like the true heir he was.
I walked up beside him and rested my head against his broad shoulder. "How does it feel to stand up?"
Tobias let out a long, ragged exhale that sounded like fifteen years of held breath finally leaving his chest. "It feels like cold air in clean lungs, Rose. It feels like waking up from a nightmare."
"We did it," I whispered.
"No," Tobias corrected gently, wrapping a protective arm around my shoulders. "We just survived the ambush. Now we have to rebuild what they tried to tear down."
Down on the street, the media vans had assembled in a massive horseshoe around the main entrance. When the double glass doors of the lobby swung open, the flashes went off like a supernova.
Garrett was led out first, his head ducked low to avoid the cameras as reporters shouted questions about the attempted murder, the wire fraud, and the fifteen-year conspiracy. Behind him, Penelope was escorted to a separate police cruiser, her face hidden beneath her coat.
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And then, stepping out into the bright afternoon sunlight side by side, came Tobias and me.
The crowd gasped. Reporters shoved microphones forward, cameras zoomed in on Tobias standing proudly on his own feet, and the entire city of Baltimore watched the two ghosts of Savannah Creek reclaim their names.
