Chapter 14 - FIVE MINUTES
“Bomb!” Caleb shouted.
Reed grabbed the phone.
“Where?”
No location.
Just a countdown.
Grant’s mother stared at the screen.
Then her face changed.
“The records.”
Caleb turned.
“What?”
Eleanor pointed toward the safe.
“Charles installed an old incineration system below this wing.”
Grant looked confused.
“For document destruction?”
“For emergencies.”
Reed shouted into his radio.
Bomb technicians moved downstairs.
Caleb noticed something else.
Victor hadn’t wanted the documents.
He wanted everyone gathered around them.
“It’s not the records,” Caleb said.
Grant looked at him.
“It’s us.”
Reed’s eyes widened.
“Move!”
They evacuated the wing.
Two minutes remaining.
Caleb helped Eleanor down the stairs.
Grant stayed beside them.
One minute.
Outside, police pushed everyone behind armored vehicles.
Thirty seconds.
Nothing happened.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Caleb watched the building.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
Then an explosion erupted.
Not inside the residence.
Across the parking lot.
Grant’s SUV lifted off the ground.
Fire rolled into the sky.
Security scattered.
Caleb understood immediately.
“Distraction.”
He turned.
Eleanor was gone.
“GRANT!”
They spun.
A black sedan was tearing away from the rear entrance.
Victor had taken her.
Again.
But this time Caleb saw the direction.
And he knew exactly where Victor was going.
The Harrington chemical plant.
Where everything had started.
Grant jumped into a police vehicle.
Caleb followed.
Reed shouted, “Wait for backup!”
Caleb slammed the door.
“No time.”
They raced through the night.
At the plant, Victor dragged Eleanor toward the same elevated platform where Thomas Miller had died.
Grant shouted from below.
“Victor!”
Victor pressed the gun against Eleanor’s head.
“Stay back.”
Caleb climbed the stairs from the opposite side.
Victor didn’t see him.
Eleanor did.
She kept talking.
“Your father would hate what you became.”
Victor snapped, “You don’t know him.”
“I knew him before prison.”
“You helped put him there.”
“Yes.”
Eleanor’s voice shook.
“And I will spend whatever life I have left admitting it.”
Victor’s hand trembled.
Caleb moved closer.
“You think confession fixes anything?”
“No.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“But truth has to start somewhere.”
Victor screamed.
“Truth?”
He pulled Eleanor toward the edge.
“Your family buried truth!”
Caleb stepped from the shadows.
“So did you.”
Victor spun.
The gun shifted.
Grant rushed up the stairs.
Victor fired.
Grant fell.
“DAD!”
Emma’s voice echoed from below.
Caleb lunged.
He slammed into Victor.
Both men crashed against the railing.
Metal groaned.
Victor punched Caleb’s wounded shoulder.
Caleb screamed.
Victor grabbed his throat.
“You should’ve died in the shed.”
Caleb looked at him.
“Yeah.”
Then he drove his forehead into Victor’s face.
The railing snapped.
Victor fell backward.
His hand caught the edge.
Caleb grabbed his wrist.
Victor dangled forty feet above the concrete.
He looked up.
“You hate me.”
Caleb’s injured arm shook.
“Yes.”
“Then let go.”
Caleb stared into the eyes of the man who helped hide his father’s death.
For one second, letting go would have been easy.
Then Caleb tightened his grip.
“No.”
Police reached the platform.
They pulled Victor up.
Handcuffed him.
Alive.
Caleb turned toward Grant.
May you like
Grant was on the floor.
Blood spreading beneath him.
