Chapter 3 - The Fake Representative
The cold metal of the silenced pistol gleamed under the beam of my phone's flashlight.
Ashley screamed, a high-pitched sound of absolute terror, and scrambled under the small viewing table.
The man who claimed to be a court representative pointed the weapon directly at my chest.
"Put the phone down on the table, Emily," he ordered, his voice devoid of any emotion.
I slowly lowered my arm, placing the phone face-up on the table so the light illuminated the ceiling.
"Who are you?" I demanded, trying to keep my voice from shaking.
He didn't answer my question.
Instead, he reached out with his free hand and snatched the handwritten letter and the sealed envelope from the table.
"Your mother was a very stubborn woman," the man said casually, folding the papers and slipping them into his jacket pocket.
"We gave her every opportunity to tell us where Emma was hiding, but she chose to protect a daughter she barely knew."
The confirmation that this man had murdered my mother sent a blinding surge of rage through my veins.
"You killed her," I whispered, my fists clenching at my sides.
"It was a simple, untraceable cardiac inducer, very peaceful," he replied with a chillingly polite smile.
He gestured toward the safe-deposit box with the barrel of his gun.
"Now, unless you want to share her fate, you are going to tell me exactly what she told you before she died."
I stared at him, realizing he hadn't read the letter and didn't know that Mom had no idea where Emma was.
If I told him the truth, that the trail was completely cold, I would have no value to him, and he would kill us both immediately.
I had to lie to survive.
"She gave me an address," I lied smoothly, forcing my expression to remain perfectly calm.
"A safehouse in upstate New York where Emma is supposed to meet me if anything happened to Mom."
The man's eyes narrowed slightly, analyzing my face for any sign of deception.
"Write it down," he commanded, kicking a notepad and pen across the table toward me.
I picked up the pen, my mind racing to invent a convincing address that would buy me enough time to escape.
As I began to write a fake address in Syracuse, the sound of heavy footsteps echoed from the hallway outside the locked door.
"Hey! Is anyone in there? The power grid for the whole block just went down!" the muffled voice of the branch manager shouted through the thick wood.
The hitman cursed softly, distracted for a fraction of a second as he glanced toward the door.
That was all the time I needed.
I grabbed the heavy metal safe-deposit box from the table and hurled it directly at his face with all my strength.
The heavy steel box struck him hard in the jaw, knocking him backward and causing the gun to fire wildly.
The silenced bullet shattered the overhead light fixture, showering the room in a rain of broken glass.
I dove under the table, grabbing Ashley by the arm, and pulled her toward the wall.
The hitman groaned in pain, scrambling in the dark to find his dropped weapon.
Suddenly, the heavy wooden door burst open, and a figure holding a high-powered tactical flashlight stepped into the room.
The beam blinded the hitman just as he raised his gun.
Two rapid, deafening shots echoed in the small space, and the hitman collapsed onto the floor, completely motionless.
The figure with the flashlight stepped over the body and pointed the beam down at Ashley and me hiding under the table.
"Are you Emily?" a sharp, female voice demanded.
I squinted against the blinding light, trying to see the face behind the beam.
The woman lowered the flashlight slightly, revealing her features in the dim glow.
I gasped in absolute shock, my heart stopping completely in my chest.
May you like
I was staring into a mirror.
The woman standing over the dead hitman, holding a smoking pistol, was my identical twin sister, Emma.
