Chapter 8 - Table Twelve
Gerald nearly fainted when we arrived at Crestwood with federal agents.
“You need footage from when?”
“March fourteenth,” I said.
“Private dining room twelve.”
Gerald stared at me.
“How do you remember that?”
“Because table twelve sent back a $240 bottle of wine claiming it was corked when it wasn’t.”
Stellan looked at me.
“That offended you?”
“Deeply.”
The footage existed.
More importantly, it had audio.
Victor Hale was recorded discussing contract percentages with Commissioner Paul Denning.
Then Nathan entered.
And said something that changed the entire case.
“Adrian should have died the first time.”
Stellan went still.
The first time?
Lillian gasped.
The recording continued.
Nathan described an earlier attempt to kill Adrian six months before the car crash.
A construction elevator malfunction.
Adrian had survived because another employee pulled him away.
That employee’s name was recorded.
Richard Voss.
Stellan’s uncle had not betrayed him.
He had saved Adrian.
Hours later, Richard arrived.
For the first time, Stellan apologized to him.
Richard simply hugged him.
It lasted two seconds.
For men like them, apparently that was practically an emotional breakdown.
Federal prosecutors now had enough evidence to arrest Hale.
They simply had to find him.
He found us first.
At 11:38 that night, Hazel’s secure transport was attacked.
Nobody was hurt.
But Hale took Lillian.
He called me directly.
“Bring the original contracts.”
“Where?”
“Voss Tower.”
I looked at Stellan.
Hale continued.
“And Josephine?”
“Yes?”
“If Stellan involves the police, your sister falls sixty stories.”
The call ended.
We went.
Of course we involved the police.
We simply made sure Hale did not know.
Voss Tower was empty when we arrived.
Hale waited on the unfinished sixty-third floor.
Lillian sat tied to a chair near the windows.
Nathan stood beside her.
He had escaped federal surveillance hours earlier.
Apparently immunity negotiations had been a distraction.
Stellan carried the documents.
I carried nothing.
At least that was what Hale believed.
A microphone had been sewn inside my coat.
“Give me the contracts,” Hale said.
“Release Lillian.”
“You’re in no position to negotiate.”
Stellan smiled coldly.
“Victor, I’m always in a position to negotiate.”
Hale raised his weapon.
Then I did something stupid.
I laughed.
Everyone looked at me.
“You’ve already lost.”
Hale frowned.
“You spent years trying to bury evidence. You killed Adrian. You threatened children. You bribed officials.”
“Be careful.”
“Why? You’re going to confess?”
His face changed.
I continued.
“You killed Adrian because he found the accounts.”
Nathan interrupted.
“Victor didn’t kill Adrian.”
Silence.
Hale turned.
Nathan smiled.
“I did.”
Stellan stopped breathing.
Nathan continued, arrogance overcoming caution.
“I cut the brake line myself.”
Exactly what investigators needed.
Hale realized it first.
“You idiot.”
Nathan’s eyes widened.
Police flooded the floor.
Chaos followed.
Hale grabbed Lillian.
Nathan ran.
Stellan went after him.
I reached Lillian.
A gunshot cracked.
Then another.
When I turned, Stellan was on the floor.
For one impossible second, the entire world became silent.
“Stellan!”
I ran.
Blood covered his shirt.
He looked at me.
“Jo.”
“Don’t talk.”
“That seems unfair.”
“Shut up.”
His mouth twitched.
Even then.
Even bleeding.
Sirens screamed below.
Nathan was arrested in the stairwell.
Hale was taken alive.
And I rode to the hospital with Stellan’s blood covering both hands.
He lost consciousness before surgery.
The last thing he said was my name.
Not Josephine.
Jo.
The name he had chosen the first night we met.
And while the operating-room doors closed between us, I finally admitted the truth I had spent weeks avoiding.
May you like
I loved him.
Which meant he had better survive long enough for me to tell him.
