Chapter 4 - Midnight at the Minnetonka Estate
The iron gates of the Minnetonka estate stood slightly ajar, casting long, menacing shadows across the snow-dusted gravel driveway. The sprawling two-story colonial home was pitch black except for a single, faint beam of light moving erratically behind the second-floor master bedroom window.
Someone was already inside.
I killed the headlights of my sedan a block away, rolling silently to a stop beneath the thick canopy of pine trees near the property line. I reached into the glove compartment and pulled out my heavy steel-handled flashlight—a sturdy tool I had carried in my nursing bag for years.
“Stay in the car, sweetie,” I whispered to Veronica, locking the doors from the inside. “If anyone comes near this vehicle, honk the horn twice and run toward the highway.”
“No, Grandma. I’m coming with my shield,” Veronica said stubbornly, pulling a small, smooth river stone from her coat pocket—a stone Bertha had given her the week before she died.
I didn't argue. There was no time. I slipped through the wrought-iron side gate, keeping low against the frosted boxwood hedges that lined the patio. The air was bone-chillingly cold, but my skin burned with adrenaline.
As I crept around to the rear garden, the crunch of frozen gravel echoed quietly behind me. I froze, pressing myself flat against the brick wall of the sunroom.
A flashlight beam swept across the lawn, cutting through the darkness just inches from where I stood.
“I’m telling you, boss, the feds are already sniffing around,” a gruff, unfamiliar voice muttered into a cell phone. “If we don't find that physical ledger in the rose garden within ten minutes, Vance is going to burn us all down.”
It was one of Christopher’s corporate fixers—a high-priced private security contractor named Miller, notorious in the Twin Cities for illegal wiretapping and intimidation tactics. He was holding a heavy trench shovel, standing directly over the old gazebo garden bed where Bertha and I had planted the white roses years ago.
He raised the shovel, preparing to drive the blade deep into the frozen soil right where the metal canister was buried.
My heart hammered against my ribs. That ledger was federal evidence; it was my daughter’s final testimony against her killer. I couldn't let them destroy it.
Before I could calculate the risk, Veronica darted from the shadow of the hedges with blinding speed. She didn't scream or cry; she hurled the smooth river stone with surprising force straight into the decorative patio light hanging above the contractor's head.
Clang!
The glass bulb shattered into a thousand glittering shards, plunging the entire backyard into sudden, absolute pitch darkness.
“What the hell?!” the fixer shouted, dropping his shovel and swinging his flashlight wildly in all directions.
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I didn't hesitate. I lunged forward out of the shadows, raised my heavy steel flashlight high above my shoulder, and brought it down with all the accumulated fury of a grieving mother directly across the back of his knee.
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