Chapter 14 - The Last Vote
Marcus carried the burned charter into Calder House at 10:38 in the morning.
He wore a wire under his shirt.
Quinn had argued for a copy.
Peter’s message had answered before she finished the sentence.
ORIGINAL. I KNOW THE BURN PATTERN.
So they brought the original.
State police filled the woods beyond the property line. Two tactical officers were inside the old carriage house. DeRosier waited in a van on the south drive.
None of them could see into the service elevator.
Marcus walked through the front door alone.
The torn portrait was gone from the rug now, tagged and stored as evidence. The wall looked naked without it.
The elevator doors were closed.
“Peter.”
Nothing.
Marcus took another step.
“Peter.”
The brass clock on the sideboard ticked again. Somebody had replaced the battery.
10:39.
A voice came from the dining room.
“Put the charter on the table.”
Peter Vale stepped into view.
No suit jacket now. White shirt. Sleeves rolled. A pistol in his right hand.
He looked smaller without the briefcase.
Marcus placed the red ledger on the table.
“Eli first.”
Peter smiled.
“You keep saying things as if your family still gets to set terms.”
“Where is he?”
Peter pointed at the elevator.
“Alive.”
“Open it.”
“Sign first.”
A document lay beside the brass clock.
Fresh paper.
Current watermark.
C-126.
Marcus looked at it.
A new twelve-percent consent.
Peter had learned from the boardroom.
“You’re still trying to close a deal that’s frozen.”
“I’m trying to create leverage.”
“For what?”
“A settlement.”
Marcus laughed.
Peter’s face hardened.
“You think the state wants six hundred employees to learn their pension fund is short? You think the board wants newspapers asking how Arthur Carrow let eight million walk out? Everybody needs a quieter ending than the truth.”
“You tried to kill him.”
“I tried to stop a seventy-two-year-old man from destroying something because he finally noticed the accounting.”
“You put my son in that elevator.”
Peter looked toward the doors.
“That was not my first choice.”
Marcus’s hands curled.
Peter tapped the signature line with the pistol.
“Sign.”
Marcus picked up the pen.
Behind the elevator doors came one knock.
Then silence.
Marcus waited.
Two quick.
One slow.
Peter looked toward the wall.
Marcus put the pen down.
“What was that?” Peter said.
Marcus heard Eli again.
Two quick.
One slow.
Not random.
Lower this time.
The old service elevator had two access points. The living room doors and, six feet below, a maintenance hatch in the basement.
Eli was telling him where he was.
Not level with the room.
Below it.
Marcus looked at Peter.
“You said he was in there.”
“He is.”
“You don’t know where.”
Peter raised the gun.
Marcus moved.
He threw the brass clock.
Peter fired.
The shot took wood out of the sideboard.
Marcus hit him at the waist.
They went across the table.
The charter slid to the floor.
Peter struck Marcus behind the ear with the pistol.
White light burst across his vision.
Then the basement door crashed open.
DeRosier came through first.
“Gun!”
Peter twisted free and fired toward the doorway.
DeRosier dropped behind the wall.
Marcus caught Peter’s wrist with both hands.
The gun went off again into the ceiling.
From below the floor came three hard knocks.
Quinn’s voice shouted through Marcus’s wire.
“We have the boy. We have Eli.”
Peter heard it.
His face changed.
For the first time since Marcus had known him, Peter Vale looked surprised.
He let go of the gun.
Not to surrender.
To grab the charter.
He snatched the red ledger off the floor and ran toward the fireplace.
Marcus caught his shirt.
Peter tore loose.
He reached the flames.
Susan stepped out of the hall.
Everyone froze.
She wore handcuffs in front of her and DeRosier’s second officer stood behind her.
Quinn had brought her as part of the identification operation and kept her outside.
Susan looked at Peter.
Peter looked at her.
“Move,” he said.
Susan did not.
“You ruined my life,” she said.
Peter laughed.
“No. I gave you permission.”
Susan stepped closer.
Peter raised the pistol he had picked back up from the rug.
Marcus saw the barrel turn.
Susan did too.
She did not move.
Peter fired.
The shot broke the mirror behind her.
DeRosier hit Peter from the side.
The gun skidded under the table.
Quinn came through the basement door with Eli against her chest, his wrists free and tape hanging from one cheek.
Marcus saw his son.
May you like
That was the last thing he saw before Peter reached inside his shirt and pulled a second gun.
