Part 24 - Chapter 7 - Under Arrest

"Lawrence, I'm so glad I caught you," a breathless Zara said as she hurried towards the front entrance of the Townsend offices. She arrived just as Lawrence was leaving for the night.

"What's going on, Zara?" he asked. He hoped this wouldn't take long, he was already late.

"You need to come with me to the groundbreaking site."

Suddenly, getting to Eileen's didn't seem so urgent. "Why? What's happened?"

"Thomas and I were just there. He did something to sabotage the equipment. I don't know what he did exactly, but if someone tries to use the machinery that's parked at the site, there's a good chance someone could get hurt."

Lawrence unlocked the office door. "I'll call the construction company . . . and the police."

"I guess we shouldn't hope you and Lawrence had good news for us?" Veronica said, trying to lighten the tension that was growing in the living room.

"No. I wish it were about me and Lawrence, but this about me and Hector." Eileen paused to take a breath and choose her words. "There's no easy way to say this, so . . . I knew Hector was the one who poisoned Clifford before he was arrested. I had suspicions about him . . . well, from the beginning really, but then I started putting things together and when I finally confronted him, he confessed."

When Eileen ventured to look up at the others in the room, they were all staring at her in disbelief. Arthur and Veronica looked at each other questioningly, while Lucy stared forward, looking a little pale.

"Why didn't you say anything before?" Art asked.

"I did tell the police . . . eventually, but they acted like they didn't believe me."

"You could have told us," Veronica said sympathetically. "How long have you been dealing with this all on your own?"

"I confronted him right before we broke up. That's the main reason why I broke off the engagement."

"I don't believe this," Lucy said, jumping up from her seat and turning away from Eileen. "You knew all along who killed my father and you never said one word to me? All this time you knew how devastated I was about not knowing who killed my father and how worried I was that the murderer was still out there and you were just pretending that you didn't know anything about it? You lied to me to protect him?"

"No, that's not what I was trying to do. I-"

Lucy held up her hands for Eileen to stop. "I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear your excuses, Eileen. Don't talk to me. It's too late."

"Lucy, wait. Just listen, please," Eileen called out, as Lucy stormed out of the house, slamming the front door behind her.

Eileen sighed and turned to face her parents. "Do both of you hate me too?"

"Of course not," Veronica said supportively as she stood by Eileen's side. "I just wish you would have come to us. It must have been so difficult for you trying to handle this alone."

"I guess I was just afraid." She turned to Arthur. "Dad?"

Arthur seemed to be thinking the situation over, struggling with how he felt about this revelation. The news of Hector's arrest had been a very painful blow to him. Given the secrets he been finding out about those he knew and worked with and trusted, Eileen's admission didn't seem that bad. "I'm not mad at you, dear. We'll get through this."

Zara stood with Lawrence at the building site, the same place she stood with Thomas only an hour before. They waited as others arrived on the scene, first the police, then men from the construction company, and finally Dr. Wilton.

She felt completely out of place, standing on the sidelines while the police and mechanics inspected the machinery and Lawrence filled Edward in on what was happening. The only reason she was still hanging around was just in case the police had any other questions for her. All she wanted to do was go home and forget this night ever happened.

"We have some good news for you," one of the police officers began as she approached Lawrence and Edward. "The mechanics say the damage isn't serious. They expect to have everything repaired by the morning, but it's good that you caught this before someone tried to run this machinery, otherwise someone could have gotten hurt."

"We have Zara to thank for that," Lawrence said. "If she hadn't spoken up the damage might have gone by unnoticed until it was too late."

"Yes, thank you, Zara," Edward added. "Thanks to you the groundbreaking can go forward as planned."

"I was just doing what I thought was right," she said, uncomfortable with the praise.

"We're glad you did."

Zara looked up at the sound of the police radio. "We have the suspect in custody and we're taking him in for questioning."

She knew she'd made the right choice, the only choice she could live with, but she didn't feel good about it.