Mara Takes the Binder

The binder was gone.

Not burned. Not soaked. Gone.

Theo had dropped it near the great-room fireplace when he ran after Elise. Claire said she had seen it there. Ruby said she had smelled burned plastic. June's video showed the half-melted box on the hearth for three seconds after everyone ran out.

By the time they returned with Martin cuffed, the hearth was empty.

Roslyn locked the house down. Deputies searched closets, crawl spaces, cars, brush, and the boathouse. Nothing.

Martin sat in a cruiser with blood at his hairline and smiled through the rain-streaked window.

"He had help," Elise said.

Roslyn looked toward Adam.

Adam held up both hands. "I was being tackled."

"Not you," Elise said.

Claire stood near the side porch with Ruby and June. Maribel's county sedan had arrived behind the police cars. Too many people. Too many open doors.

Theo checked June's footage frame by frame on his phone. "Someone enters from the mudroom after we run."

He zoomed. A dark sleeve. A hand with a white bandage.

Mara.

Roslyn swore. "She was in custody."

"She was with a deputy in the second car," Theo said.

Roslyn's radio crackled before she could answer. The deputy transporting Mara had been found unconscious in his cruiser two miles back. Mara was gone.

Elise looked at Martin. His smile had not moved.

"He wanted us to chase him," she said. "Mara took the binder."

"Can she use it?" Claire asked.

"She can sell it," Theo said. "To Martin's donor, to victim lawyers, to anyone who wants control."

Ruby leaned against the wall, gray with blood loss and pain. "Mara kept a copy of everything she notarized."

Elise turned. "Where?"

Ruby shook her head. "She said never trust rich people with originals."

For a moment, the lake house was quiet except for rain.

Then Martin's cruiser radio picked up a dispatcher call.

A woman matching Mara's description had just entered Westport Bank.