Chapter 8 - THE FATHER AND THE SON
Thomas moved in front of Marianne.
Derek laughed bitterly.
“Still protecting her.”
“Put the gun down,” Thomas said.
“You first.”
“I’m not armed.”
“You always had something hidden.”
Security doors sealed behind Derek.
Naomi whispered, “The stairwell is thirty feet behind us.”
Derek’s gun shifted toward her.
“Naomi Hart. You look like your sister.”
“Where is Rebecca?”
“Working.”
“For you?”
“For whoever lets her survive.”
Thomas took one step forward.
Derek raised the weapon.
“Don’t.”
“You won’t shoot me.”
“You don’t know me anymore.”
“I know exactly who you are.”
Derek’s face twisted.
“No, you know the boy who disappointed you.”
“I know the man who watched his mother destroy herself to pay imaginary bills.”
“That was not the plan.”
Marianne stepped beside Thomas.
“What was the plan?”
Derek looked at her.
For the first time, she saw something like shame.
“The first bills were supposed to be small.”
“You told me you were dying.”
“Vale said you would never transfer the house unless you believed there was no other choice.”
“So you agreed.”
“I was in debt.”
“You were always in debt.”
“Not like this.”
“To whom?”
Derek glanced toward the ceiling camera.
Thomas answered.
“Pike.”
Derek’s grip tightened around the gun.
“He owned my contracts, my loans, everything. He said the family assets already belonged to the network because Dad stole evidence.”
“I did not steal it,” Thomas said. “I preserved it.”
“You destroyed my life.”
“I tried to save it.”
“You cut me out.”
“I gave you a choice. Testify or leave the city.”
“And if I testified, Halpern would have killed Mom.”
Marianne looked at Thomas.
“Is that true?”
Thomas hesitated.
Derek laughed.
“Ask your heroic husband. Ask him why he let you think he was dead.”
Thomas faced her.
“Pike threatened you.”
“For eight years?”
“I believed distance kept you safe.”
“While our son worked for him?”
“I did not know Derek returned.”
Derek’s voice broke.
“I returned because they found me.”
He lowered the gun slightly.
“After the crash, Pike showed me photographs of Mom sleeping. Shopping. Visiting your grave. He said if I ran again, she would join you.”
Marianne’s anger did not disappear, but it changed shape.
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“How?”
“You could have told me anything.”
“You never saw what was in front of you.”
The accusation landed because part of it was true.
Derek continued.
“You thought every lie was grief. Every failed business was bad luck. Every strange man at the house was a friend. You wanted me innocent so badly that I learned exactly how to look innocent.”
The alarm grew louder.
Footsteps approached beyond the elevator.
Thomas looked toward the stairwell.
“Pike’s security team will be here in two minutes.”
Derek raised the gun again.
“Give me the lottery ticket.”
“No,” Marianne said.
“It can buy our way out.”
“You said the treatment needed forty thousand dollars.”
“I needed to know whether you had claimed it.”
“You already knew I won.”
“I knew a ticket had been scanned at Keller’s Market. The camera showed your coat, not your face.”
“So you searched my house.”
“Yes.”
“You planted Dr. Vale’s body.”
“No.”
Marianne watched him carefully.
“Who did?”
“Pike.”
“Why?”
“Vale was going to leave.”
“Why was he in my kitchen?”
“He came to warn you.”
Naomi frowned.
“Vale participated in the fraud.”
“He also recorded everything,” Derek said. “He believed Pike would kill him once the property transfer was complete.”
“Where are the recordings?”
“I don’t know.”
Thomas looked at him.
“You know.”
Derek’s eyes moved toward Marianne’s handbag.
“Give me the ticket, and I’ll tell you.”
Marianne reached inside.
Derek straightened.
She withdrew the envelope.
“Mom,” Thomas warned.
Derek extended his hand.
Marianne tore the envelope in half.
Derek shouted and rushed forward.
She pulled out a blank grocery receipt.
The real ticket remained sewn inside the handbag lining where Naomi had hidden it.
Derek stared at the torn paper.
Marianne met his eyes.
“You taught me how easily a frightened mother can be deceived.”
The stairwell door opened behind them.
Naomi struck Derek’s wrist.
The gun fired into the ceiling.
Thomas tackled him.
Marianne kicked the weapon beneath a patient cart.
Three guards appeared at the far end.
Naomi opened Room 417.
“Inside.”
They dragged Derek into the room and locked the door.
A maintenance hatch behind the bed led into a pipe corridor.
Thomas climbed through first.
Marianne followed.
Derek remained on the floor holding his injured wrist.
“Leave him,” Thomas said.
Marianne looked back.
Derek raised his head.
“Mom.”
The guards struck the door from outside.
“Please.”
Marianne remembered every night beside his hospital bed.
Every bill.
Every prayer.
Every moment she believed she was losing him.
Then she remembered his laughter.
She entered the hatch.
Derek lunged and caught her ankle.
“Pike will kill me.”
Marianne looked down at her son.
“Then help us stop him.”
“I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
The door frame cracked.
Derek’s grip weakened.
Marianne pulled free.
Naomi sealed the hatch.
They crawled through darkness as the guards entered Room 417.
Behind them, Derek began shouting.
May you like
Not for his mother.
For Conrad Pike.
