Chapter 11 - The Secret From Florence Prison
The drive to the Florence State Correctional Complex took an hour and fifteen minutes through the dark, empty desert highway.
Nora sat in the back of her Range Rover, watching the distant security lights of the prison facility grow larger against the night sky.
Daniel Moore sat beside her, holding the official transfer clearance signed by the state warden.
When they arrived, a senior correctional officer led them into a private medical holding room in the prison infirmary.
Kristina Finch lay hooked to an oxygen monitor on a small hospital bed, her face gray, frail, and hollowed by six months of prison life.
Her thick yellow gloves and expensive clothes were gone, replaced by a drab grey jumpsuit and paper slippers.
When Nora walked into the room, Kristina’s eyes fluttered open, locking onto her former daughter-in-law with weak intensity.
“Nora…” Kristina rasped out, her breathing shallow and labored.
Nora stood at the foot of the bed, her hands folded calmly in front of her, showing neither pity nor anger.
“The warden said you had something to tell me, Kristina,” Nora said quietly.
Kristina let out a wet, raspy cough, her hand trembling as she pointed toward a small metal table beside the bed.
A single, worn leather journal sat on the table—its pages yellowed and filled with dense, faded handwriting.
“Edgar… didn’t tell you… everything,” Kristina whispered, her voice barely louder than the hum of the heart monitor.
“He didn’t just want… your insurance money, Nora.”
Nora looked at the journal, then back at the dying woman in the bed.
“What are you talking about?” Nora asked.
Kristina let out a bitter, cruel chuckle that sounded like dry leaves scraping across concrete.
“Read page forty-two… about your father’s construction company in 2012,” Kristina wheezed out, her monitor beeping erratically.
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“Edgar didn’t meet you by accident at that trade show in Tucson…”
“He was sent.”
