Chapter 14 - THE SOUND OF NOTHING
I don’t remember deciding to move.
One second Nathan was standing.
The next he was on the concrete.
I ran.
“Maria!” Bennett shouted.
Another gunshot cracked through the hangar.
I threw myself beside Nathan.
Blood spread across his shoulder.
“Nathan.”
His eyes opened.
“I’m okay.”
“You got shot!”
“I noticed.”
Vanessa was screaming.
Lang dragged her backward.
Police surrounded the plane but couldn’t fire without risking hitting her.
Nathan gripped my wrist.
“Get down.”
I pressed fabric against his shoulder.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Maria.”
“I know.”
“No.”
His eyes widened.
“Behind you.”
I turned.
Another man emerged from the plane.
Charles Ward.
Evan’s brother.
The estate lawyer.
The man in the hospital video.
He was alive, armed and running toward us.
I shoved Nathan down.
Charles grabbed me.
His arm locked around my neck.
“Move!”
I couldn’t breathe.
He dragged me toward the plane.
Nathan tried to stand.
Collapsed.
“Maria!”
Charles pressed a gun against my ribs.
“Stay down.”
Then I saw Vanessa.
She was still trapped in front of Lang.
Our eyes met.
For one strange second, the two of us understood the same thing.
The men behind the plan were cleaning up.
Evan was dead.
Vanessa was next.
Then me.
Maybe Nathan.
Anyone who could testify.
Vanessa whispered something to Lang.
He leaned closer.
She drove her heel into his foot.
Lang cursed.
Vanessa twisted.
The gun moved away from her head.
Police fired.
Lang dropped.
At almost the same moment, I slammed the back of my head into Charles’s face.
Pain exploded through my skull.
He loosened his grip.
I turned and drove my elbow into his stomach.
He grabbed my hair.
I screamed.
Then Nathan came from nowhere.
Bleeding.
Barely upright.
He hit Charles with a metal wrench.
Charles went down.
The gun slid across the floor.
I kicked it away.
Police swarmed.
“Hands!”
“DON’T MOVE!”
Charles was pinned.
Lang lay several yards away, alive but wounded.
Vanessa stood frozen.
Blood on her dress.
Not hers.
She looked at Nathan.
He looked back.
Neither spoke.
Detective Bennett reached us.
“EMS!”
Nathan sat hard on the floor.
I pressed my hands against his wound again.
He winced.
“You’re terrible at following directions.”
I almost laughed.
“You got shot.”
“Still true.”
Vanessa started crying.
Not elegant tears.
Not controlled tears.
She sank to the concrete.
“I didn’t know Peter killed Evan.”
Nathan looked at her.
She wiped her face.
“I swear.”
Nathan said nothing.
“I didn’t know he planned to kill you.”
Nathan finally spoke.
“You drugged me.”
Her face broke.
“I was scared.”
“You drugged my father.”
“I didn’t know what Charles gave me.”
“You poured it into his water.”
“I thought it would calm him.”
Nathan stared at her.
She cried harder.
“I loved you.”
He shook his head.
“Stop saying that.”
“I did.”
“No.”
His voice was soft.
“That’s the lie you tell yourself so you can live with everything else.”
Police handcuffed Vanessa.
As they led her away, she looked at me.
Hatred flashed across her face.
“You ruined my life.”
I stared at her.
“No.”
Then I signed the words because I wanted Sophia’s language in that moment.
YOU DID.
Vanessa looked away.
The ambulance took Nathan to St. Joseph’s.
The bullet had passed through soft tissue in his shoulder.
No artery.
No bone.
He would recover.
His hearing was less certain.
Two days later, Dr. Mercer brought the results.
Nathan sat in his hospital bed.
I sat beside Sophia.
Mercer looked at the chart.
“Your hearing loss is real.”
Nathan nodded slowly.
“How much comes back?”
“We don’t know.”
“Best guess.”
“Some may improve after the compound clears completely.”
“And the rest?”
Mercer hesitated.
“Some damage may be permanent.”
Nathan looked toward the window.
Sophia climbed off my lap.
She walked to him.
Nathan looked down.
She signed:
SAD?
He nodded.
A little.
Sophia thought.
Then she signed:
ME DEAF.
He nodded.
She pointed at herself.
GOOD.
Nathan’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
He whispered.
“You’re good.”
Sophia frowned.
Then corrected him.
Not good.
FINE.
She tapped his arm.
YOU FINE.
Nathan laughed.
Then cried.
Quietly.
Sophia climbed beside him.
He signed THANK YOU.
Wrong handshape.
Wrong movement.
Terrible.
She corrected him immediately.
For the first time since the dinner, I laughed until my stomach hurt.
Nathan looked at me.
“What?”
“Your signing is awful.”
“It’s been a difficult week.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
Sophia nodded seriously.
Nathan pointed at her.
“See? No sympathy.”
Then his phone buzzed.
His expression changed.
“What?”
I asked.
He read the message.
“The board voted.”
My stomach tightened.
“And?”
He looked up.
“They removed me as CEO.”
Silence.
After everything he had done, everything he had confessed, Cole Meridian’s board had decided he was too much liability.
I expected Nathan to rage.
He didn’t.
He put the phone down.
“Okay.”
“That’s it?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Throw something.”
“My shoulder hurts.”
“Fair.”
He smiled.
Then another message arrived.
This time from Detective Bennett.
Charles Ward had started talking.
He offered a full confession in exchange for a deal.
Vanessa had been arrested on charges including conspiracy, poisoning, fraud and attempted coercion.
Lang faced murder charges in Evan Ward’s death.
Richard faced charges connected to trust fraud and obstruction.
Nathan’s father’s death was officially reopened.
It was finally ending.
Or so we thought.
Bennett’s second message came thirty seconds later.
She had found something in Charles Ward’s confession.
A note about Sophia.
Nathan read it.
His smile vanished.
“What?”
I asked.
He turned the phone toward me.
Charles admitted that, three weeks before the dinner, Vanessa had ordered someone to frighten Sophia into staying away from the west wing.
My blood froze.
I stared at the screen.
Nathan whispered:
“Maria…”
The person Vanessa hired had entered the estate.
May you like
Had approached my daughter.
And according to Charles, had already tried once to hurt her.
