Chapter 7 - Blood on the Sixth Floor
The beam of Malcolm’s tactical flashlight illuminated the door handle as it slowly depressed.
"Sarah, get behind the bed," Detective Ramos commanded in a low, steely whisper, stepping in front of my mattress with his Glock 17 drawn and held at low ready. "Mrs. Davis, stay down."
The heavy door creaked open.
A figure stepped into the threshold, framed by the red glow of the emergency hallway beacon. It wasn't Michael.
It was Dr. Robert Keller.
The vice-chair of cardiology was still wearing his surgical scrubs, but his white coat was torn at the lapel, his stethoscope missing, and his usually immaculate silver hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. In his right hand, he held a stainless-steel hospital defibrillator paddle, its heavy power cable trailing behind him like a dead snake. His eyes were wide, glassy, and completely detached from reality.
"Malcolm," Keller rasped, his voice trembling with manic desperation. "Tell the police to stand down. Just tell them to let me walk out to my car. That's all I want. Just let me drive out of here."
"It's over, Robert," Malcolm said, stepping forward so that his body shielded both Ramos and me. "The DEA and the state attorney general already have your prescribing logs. We know about the offshore accounts in Grand Cayman. We know about the loans from Marcus Vance."
"You don't understand what Vance does to people who default!" Keller screamed, his voice bouncing off the concrete ceiling in a horrifying shriek. "He doesn't sue you, Malcolm! He puts your children in industrial incinerators! David Davis promised me the escrow release would be signed before sunset! He swore the old woman would be certified incompetent by two o'clock!"
"Put the weapon down, Keller!" Ramos barked, raising his firearm until the red dot of the laser sight rested squarely on Keller’s chest. "On your knees! Now!"
Behind Keller, a shadow separated itself from the darkness of the corridor.
"He's not putting anything down," a voice hissed.
Michael lunged from the blind spot behind the doorframe. In his raised hand, he swung a two-foot steel maintenance pry-bar with terrifying, lethal momentum.
*Crack!*
The steel bar struck Ramos’s right forearm with a sickening crunch. The detective’s gun fired into the linoleum floor with an ear-splitting boom, the ricochet sparking against the metal bed frame as Ramos crumpled to the ground, his weapon skittering away into the shadows beneath the sink.
Sarah screamed, curling into a fetal ball against the wall.
"Michael, stop!" I screamed, tearing the IV lines from the back of my hand as blood welled across the white adhesive tape. "Michael, please! I'm your mother!"
Michael didn't even look at me. His eyes were fixed on the leather briefcase resting on the side table—the briefcase containing Arthur’s original deed maps and property documents. He raised the pry-bar again, stepping over Ramos’s groaning form, his face twisted into an expression of rabid, homicidal frenzy.
"You ruined us!" Michael roared, swinging the steel bar directly at Malcolm’s head.
Malcolm didn't flinch.
With the blinding, fluid speed of someone trained for years in close-quarters defense, Malcolm stepped inside the arc of the swing. His left forearm deflected the blow at Michael’s wrist, while his right palm struck Michael’s chin in a vicious, upward palm-heel strike that snapped Michael’s head backward.
Michael staggered, dazed, but his adrenaline-fueled fury kept him upright. He lunged forward with his bare hands, tackling Malcolm against the metal supply cart. Bottles of sterile saline, syringes, and stainless-steel trays crashed to the floor in a deafening avalanche of glass and metal.
Dr. Keller saw his opening. Dropping the defibrillator paddle, he lunged across the floor toward Ramos’s dropped firearm.
"No you don't!"
Sarah threw herself forward from behind the bed.
With a desperate, hysterical shriek, my daughter tackled the sixty-year-old cardiologist around the ankles, bringing him crashing face-first into the overturned supply tray. Keller thrashed, kicking his heel into Sarah’s ribs, but Sarah held on with the desperate, bloodied grip of a drowning woman, screaming for help at the top of her lungs.
Across the room, Michael had pinned Malcolm against the wall, his fingers digging into Malcolm’s throat. "Give me the papers! Give me the keys to the Kirkland box!"
Malcolm’s face was turning purple, but his eyes remained deadly, chillingly focused.
Reaching down with his right hand, Malcolm grabbed a shattered glass vial of concentrated epinephrine from the floor. With one clean, brutal motion, he drove the jagged glass edge directly into the meat of Michael’s thigh.
Michael shrieked in agony, his grip breaking as he collapsed backward, clutching his bleeding leg.
Before Michael could rise, the heavy fire doors at the end of the hall blew open with the thunderous roar of tactical boots.
"Seattle PD! Nobody move! On the ground! On the ground now!"
Four heavily armed SWAT officers poured into Room 412, their rifle-mounted lights turning the pitch-black suite into daylight. Within three seconds, two officers had Keller pinned to the floor with boots on his neck, while two others drove Michael face-down into the glass shards, wrenching his arms behind his back and securing him in heavy steel cuffs.
Malcolm stood up, coughing hoarsely, adjusting his torn silk tie with steady, mechanical precision. He walked over to Ramos, extending a hand to help the injured detective to his feet.
"Officer," Malcolm said, his voice raspy but calm. "Get medical staff up here to set Detective Ramos’s arm. And secure these two in the maximum-security forensic ward."
Michael thrashed against the floor, blood pouring from the gash in his leg, spitting saliva and curses. "You think you won, Mom?! You think you saved your precious little legacy?! David’s already at the lake! He took the truck an hour ago! He has the gas cans! If we can't have Arthur's land, nobody will!"
My heart stopped.
The beeping of the monitor went completely flat for two terrifying seconds before sputtering back into an agonizing arrhythmia.
"Arthur's workshop," I gasped, clutching my chest as the room began to spin. "The cedar... the old wood... it will burn like paper..."
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Malcolm turned to me. His glasses were cracked, and a thin line of blood ran from his temple down his cheek, but his eyes were filled with an unshakeable, unbreakable promise.
"It won't burn, Adrienne," Malcolm said, grabbing his coat. "Not while I have breath in my body."
