Chapter 2 - The Crimson Shadow
The lead detective was a woman named Karen Vance—no relation to Rachel, though the irony felt like a sick joke. She had sharp, tired eyes and smelled of stale espresso. Within twenty minutes, my small living room was crawling with blue uniforms, and the blue-and-red strobe lights outside cast frantic, spinning shadows across my ceiling.
Lily and Leo were in the kitchen, eating bowls of sugary cereal under the watchful eye of a gentle female officer. They didn't know that their mother's silver Civic was currently a charred skeleton on the shoulder of I-94, or that two bodies—both identified as high-ranking members of a notorious local syndicate—had been found in a warehouse less than three miles from the burning car.
"She left this?" Detective Vance asked, holding Rachel’s note inside a clear plastic evidence bag.
"Yes. It was pinned to Leo's coat," I said, my voice barely a whisper. I sat on my sofa, wrapped in a blanket I didn't need, shivering anyway. "Rachel is... she’s reckless, Detective. She gets involved with the wrong people. But she loves her kids. She wouldn't just..."
"She left them with four million dollars in cash, Ms. Vance," the detective interrupted, leaning forward. "And that cash is marked. It belongs to the Moretti family. They control half the illegal docks on the lakefront. Two of their men were shot execution-style this morning, and your sister’s car was seen leaving the scene before it was torched."
My stomach plummeted. "You think Rachel killed them?"
"We think Rachel was a courier who got greedy, or she was set up," Vance said grimly. "Either way, whoever she stole that money from knows she has children. And they will look for the children first to find her."
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The realization hit me like a physical blow. The quiet neighborhood, my beautiful townhome, my stable job at the accounting firm—it was all gone in an instant. We weren't safe here. Not for another hour.
Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from the back of the house, followed by the sharp, terrifying sound of shattering glass.
