Chapter 18 - THE RETURN OF VICTOR HALE
Victor’s escape had been planned before his arrest.
A federal transport officer had received payments through one of Caleb’s shell companies.
The officer caused a collision near a mountain tunnel.
Two guards were injured.
Victor disappeared into a waiting vehicle.
By the time Elena received the alert, he was already an hour from Cascade Ridge.
Nathan boarded a Coast Guard helicopter.
The storm returned as they crossed the mountains.
Snow covered the estate.
Sarah had been warned.
She moved Lily, the twins, and Rosa into the safe room.
State officers surrounded the property.
Victor still knew the hidden tunnels better than anyone.
Nathan’s helicopter landed near the lower driveway.
He ran inside.
The estate appeared quiet.
Too quiet.
Elena checked the security panel.
“All officers report.”
No one answered from the north garden.
They found two officers unconscious near the crypt entrance.
Victor had used anesthetic gas from the old network.
“He is inside.”
Nathan said.
The safe-room monitor showed Sarah holding Owen and Ethan.
Lily stood beside her.
“Nathan?”
Sarah’s voice came through the intercom.
“I’m here.”
“The inner door will not open.”
Victor had overridden the system.
Elena’s technician began working on the controls.
A camera activated inside the wine cellar.
Victor appeared.
His suit was torn from the escape.
Blood marked one side of his face.
He carried Robert Pierce’s old pistol.
“Nathan.”
Victor spoke into the camera.
“Come to the garden.”
“No.”
“Then the oxygen supply to the safe room stops.”
Nathan checked the monitor.
The ventilation indicator had turned red.
Sarah placed oxygen cannulas on the twins.
The emergency tanks would last less than thirty minutes.
Nathan walked toward the garden.
Elena followed at a distance.
Snow reached his ankles.
Victor stood beside the open time-capsule pit.
The destroyed capsule was gone, but the hole remained.
“You look tired.”
Nathan said.
Victor laughed.
“I built your life.”
“You built a prison and called it a legacy.”
“I made you wealthy.”
“You murdered my parents.”
“Your father was weak.”
“He tried to correct his mistakes.”
“He chose Margaret over the company.”
Nathan looked toward the glass house.
“That was the first good decision he made.”
Victor raised the pistol.
“You sound like him.”
“Good.”
Victor’s face twisted.
“You think surrendering the company will save your reputation?”
“I do not care about my reputation.”
“You will.”
“When patients sue.”
“When donors leave.”
“When the hospital removes your name.”
Nathan stepped closer.
“I will still have Sarah.”
“I will still have Lily.”
“I will still have Owen and Ethan.”
“You never understood that because no one stayed with you without being paid.”
Victor fired into the snow near Nathan’s foot.
Elena aimed from behind the wall.
Nathan raised one hand to stop her.
Victor’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“Open the crypt.”
“Why?”
“The original voting seals.”
“Federal agents already have them.”
“Copies.”
Victor’s voice became unstable.
“Margaret hid the real seals with Robert’s coffin.”
Nathan understood.
Victor had never found them.
Sarah had lied about the lodge vault to protect the crypt.
“You need Sarah’s thumbprint.”
“I need her hand.”
Victor looked toward the house.
“She does not need to be alive.”
Nathan moved before Victor could turn.
He struck Victor’s gun arm.
The pistol fired.
The bullet shattered a garden light.
They fell into the snow.
Victor drove his knee into Nathan’s ribs.
Nathan grabbed the silver cane lying beside the pit.
He struck the pistol from Victor’s hand.
Victor reached for Nathan’s throat.
For a man in his sixties, he remained strong.
Fear gave him strength.
Nathan twisted free.
Elena ran forward.
A gunshot came from the roof.
Snow exploded near her.
A second escape accomplice fired from an upper balcony.
Elena moved behind the stone angel.
Victor grabbed his pistol and ran toward the crypt.
Nathan followed.
Inside, Victor pressed Robert’s old ring against the tomb scanner.
The hidden staircase opened.
Victor descended.
Nathan followed him into the underground chamber.
Dr. Reed’s bed was gone.
The medical equipment had been removed.
Victor approached Robert’s tomb from below.
He opened a hidden compartment.
A sealed case rested inside.
Victor lifted it.
“You see?”
His eyes shone.
“Your father protected the company in the end.”
Nathan looked at the engraving.
The case did not contain voting seals.
It contained a letter addressed to Victor.
Victor opened it.
Robert Pierce’s final words were brief.
Victor,
You taught me to believe that the company mattered more than the people inside it.
You were wrong.
I have transferred the final authority to my children.
The seals you seek were destroyed.
No one should hold that kind of power alone again.
If you are reading this, then you have come to rob the dead.
I hope Nathan and Sarah choose a better life than we did.
Victor tore the letter in half.
“No.”
Nathan stood at the base of the stairs.
“It is over.”
Victor looked toward the ceiling.
“The safe room still has no oxygen.”
Nathan’s phone showed nineteen minutes remaining.
“Give me the override code.”
“Open the tomb.”
“The seals are gone.”
“Margaret never destroyed anything.”
Victor fired at the tomb lock.
The bullet ricocheted.
A stone panel shifted.
Behind it was a final compartment.
Victor laughed.
He reached inside.
Instead of seals, he found a child’s red mitten.
Sarah’s mitten.
Their mother had placed it there after a winter storm when Sarah was five.
A note was attached.
Family is what survives the cold.
Victor stared at the mitten.
Nathan saw the moment his certainty broke.
Everything Victor had done had been built on the belief that wealth was the center of the Pierce family.
The final compartment contained no wealth.
Only proof that Margaret understood what truly mattered.
Victor raised the pistol toward Nathan.
“You ruined everything.”
“No.”
Nathan said.
“You did.”
A shot echoed.
Victor staggered.
Marcus stood at the top of the stairs in handcuffs.
A wounded state officer held the other end of the chain.
Marcus had taken the officer’s backup gun after the rooftop accomplice attacked their vehicle.
The bullet struck Victor’s shoulder.
Victor fired back.
Marcus fell.
Nathan rushed forward.
He struck Victor with the silver cane.
The pistol slid beneath the tomb.
Elena entered and forced Victor to the floor.
She handcuffed him.
Nathan ran to Marcus.
The bullet had entered his abdomen.
“Why did you come here?”
Marcus struggled to breathe.
“Lily.”
“She is safe.”
“Not until he is gone.”
Nathan applied pressure to the wound.
Marcus looked toward the red mitten.
“I was not always like this.”
Nathan said nothing.
Marcus closed his eyes.
“That does not matter.”
“No.”
“It does not.”
Marcus accepted the truth.
“Tell Lily I am sorry.”
“You will tell her yourself if you survive.”
Nathan called for medics.
Elena searched Victor and found the safe-room override device.
She entered the code.
The ventilation system restarted with four minutes remaining.
Nathan reached the safe room as the inner door opened.
Lily ran into his arms.
Sarah followed carrying the twins.
“You came back.”
Lily whispered.
Nathan held her tightly.
“I told you I would.”
She looked at the blood on his coat.
“Is Daddy dead?”
“No.”
“Is the cane man?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because they have to answer for what they did.”
Lily rested her head against his shoulder.
Outside, police lights filled the storm.
Victor was carried from the crypt in restraints.
He looked toward the glass mansion one final time.
Federal agents had recovered the archive.
The patients were free.
The company was no longer his.
Sarah stood beside Nathan with all three children.
Victor had spent seven years dividing them.
In the end, he watched them leave the garden together.
Then Ethan’s monitor alarm sounded.
May you like
Nathan looked down.
The infant’s lips were turning blue.
