Chapter 13 - Fathers and Sons
Leo wanted to throw something.
Instead he stood there shaking.
“You worked with the man who kidnapped Grandpa?”
Michael stepped closer.
“At first, yes.”
“At first?”
“Samuel found me six years ago.”
“You told Grandpa you were investigating missing money.”
“I was.”
“For Samuel?”
“No.”
Michael leaned against a cabinet.
Blood spread near his ribs.
Leo noticed.
“You’re hurt.”
“Dalton’s bullet grazed me.”
“Sit down.”
Michael almost smiled.
“Still mad at me?”
“Very.”
“Fair.”
He sat.
Leo kept his distance.
Michael looked at the confession.
“Samuel saved my life.”
“What?”
“The night my car went into the ravine, it wasn’t an accident. Someone forced me off the road.”
“Samuel?”
“No. Dalton.”
Leo’s eyes widened.
“Samuel pulled me from the wreck before the car went over the edge.”
“Why?”
“Because he needed what I knew about Caldwell accounts.”
“So you helped him.”
“For a while.”
Michael nodded.
“I thought Henry was responsible for everything Samuel said.”
“Was he?”
“Some of it.”
Leo waited.
“Henry cheated Samuel. Forced him out. Covered it up.”
Leo felt something painful settle inside him.
He loved Grandpa.
That didn’t make Grandpa innocent.
Michael continued.
“But Samuel stopped wanting justice years ago. He started stealing from innocent employees, retirement accounts, company funds.”
“So you left.”
“I tried.”
“That’s why you stayed dead?”
Michael looked at Leo.
“That’s why Samuel threatened you and your mother.”
Leo turned away.
“You could’ve come home.”
“I wanted to every day.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
The honesty hurt more than another excuse.
Footsteps sounded upstairs.
Michael stood.
“We need to go.”
Leo grabbed several documents from cabinet seventeen.
“What about all this?”
“We take enough to prove the case.”
Another gunshot.
A man shouted.
Leo and Michael climbed the stairs.
The old mill floor had become chaos.
Victor was wrestling Dalton near the truck entrance.
Rachel crouched beside Henry.
Melissa held a metal pipe.
Elaine stood near a broken window.
Samuel faced Sheriff Dalton.
Dalton’s gun pointed at him.
“Enough,” Dalton shouted.
Samuel smiled coldly.
“You were always weak.”
Dalton fired.
Samuel jerked backward.
Elaine screamed.
Victor tackled Dalton.
The gun slid across the floor.
Leo ran toward his mother.
“Mom!”
Rachel grabbed him.
“Oh God.”
“I’m okay.”
Michael reached Henry.
Samuel lay on the floor.
Blood darkened his coat.
Henry stared down at his former partner.
For thirty years, hatred had lived between those men.
Now Henry knelt.
“Samuel.”
Samuel coughed.
“You still owe me fifty thousand dollars.”
Henry laughed through tears.
“You always were terrible with interest.”
Samuel smiled faintly.
Then his eyes moved toward Leo.
“Cabinet seventeen?”
Leo nodded.
“Good.”
Dalton suddenly broke free from Victor.
He grabbed Elaine and pressed a knife against her throat.
“Everybody back!”
Victor froze.
“Let her go.”
Dalton dragged Elaine toward the exit.
“I want the flash drive.”
Leo touched his pocket.
Dalton saw it.
“Give it to me, kid.”
Henry whispered, “Leo, no.”
Dalton pressed the knife harder.
Elaine cried out.
Victor begged.
“Leo.”
For the first time, Leo understood why adults sometimes made bad choices.
Because when somebody you loved was in danger, right and wrong stopped looking simple.
He pulled the flash drive from his pocket.
May you like
Dalton smiled.
Then Leo threw it into the furnace chute.
