Chapter 80 - The Granite Line
I looked at the briefcase full of money. Twenty million dollars. More than enough to erase every hardship, every cold winter in New Hampshire, every scrape and bruise I had ever endured.
Then I looked at Evelyn Vance—this polished, hollow woman who thought everything on earth had a barcode attached to it.
"You really don't understand, do you?" I said softly.
Evelyn frowned, her smile faltering for the first time. "Understand what?"
"When Tori showed up on my porch yesterday morning at six-thirty, she thought I was an appliance," I said, walking slowly toward the table. "She thought I was a grandmother who could be turned on and off with a wave of her hand. She thought my life was already over, so it didn't matter if she stole what was left of it."
I stopped right in front of Evelyn, looking down into her face.
"And you and Roland think Arthur was just a set of bank accounts you could forge your way through. But Arthur was my husband. And that farmhouse wasn't just wood and nails—it was fifty years of my sweat and blood."
With a swift, clean motion, I reached out, grabbed the ivory briefcase by its brass handle, and hurled it over the terracotta railing.
The briefcase burst open as it fell through the air, sending hundreds of thousands of dollars in bearer drafts and certified checks fluttering across the rooftops and alleys of the Kasbah like a swarm of white locusts. Screams and shouts of astonishment erupted from the crowded market streets below.
Evelyn’s face went dead white. "You crazy old bitch—"
"Lind!" I yelled.
From the doorway of the staircase, Lind appeared, leveling his weapon not at Evelyn, but at the sky. He fired two deafening shots into the air.
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The marketplace below panicked. Shouts, sirens, and the roar of a crowd surged upward. In Morocco, gunfire in the Kasbah brought the Royal Gendarmerie down like an avalanche.
"Your private security has exactly four minutes before the local military police seal this entire hill, Evelyn," I said, turning my back on her and heading for the stairs. "Tell Roland to keep his jet warm. I'll see him in Zurich."
