Chapter 7 - THE PRICE OF A CHILD
Snow whipped across the airstrip.
Victor stood near the plane with a pistol in one hand and a cane supporting his injured leg. Charles held Grace against his chest. Her tiny face was red from crying.
Marianne gripped the detonator.
Fuel lines ran from the truck toward hidden barrels surrounding the ranch’s heating system.
They had prepared this long before the storm.
“Give me my daughter,” I said.
Charles smiled.
“She is technically more valuable than the entire ranch.”
“She is six months old.”
“She is a Whitmore heir. Her biometric records provide access to three trusts Claire established before her death.”
“Claire would never use her children that way.”
“She was trying to protect their inheritance from Victor and me.”
Emma stepped forward.
Victor raised his weapon toward her.
“Stay where you are.”
Emma ignored him.
“Grace is cold.”
Charles adjusted the blanket.
“She will survive.”
“You said the same thing about every baby you sold.”
His expression hardened.
Emma continued.
“You called them liabilities because admitting they were children would force you to recognize what you became.”
“I became wealthy.”
“You became a man who needs an infant as a shield.”
Victor fired into the snow near Emma’s feet.
I pulled her back.
“Enough.”
Charles nodded toward the chapel.
“Bring the vault drives.”
“They have already been transmitted to federal investigators,” Elena called from behind us.
She approached with her hands visible.
“That was foolish,” Charles said.
“It was automatic when we opened the room.”
A lie, but Charles could not know that.
His confidence flickered.
Victor turned on him.
“You said the vault was isolated.”
“It was.”
“You promised me immunity.”
“I promised you escape.”
Victor looked at the plane.
The pilot’s seat was empty.
“Where is the pilot?”
Charles smiled coldly.
“You know too much.”
Victor understood.
For the first time, the two criminals looked at one another as enemies.
Marianne began backing toward the truck.
Emma saw it.
“She’s leaving.”
Victor turned.
Marianne ran.
Charles shouted, “Press it!”
She raised the detonator.
A shot cracked across the field.
Margaret fired from the ranch balcony.
The bullet struck the detonator from Marianne’s hand.
Elena’s deputies emerged from the tree line and tackled her.
Victor aimed at Charles.
Charles threw Grace toward the snow.
Emma screamed and ran.
I fired at Victor as Charles fled toward the plane.
Victor’s bullet struck my side.
Mine hit his shoulder.
I fell to one knee.
Emma dove beneath Grace and caught her against her chest, rolling through the snow.
The plane’s engine started remotely.
Charles climbed inside.
Elena fired at the landing gear.
The plane accelerated down the icy strip.
Victor staggered after it, shouting.
“You cannot leave me!”
Charles never looked back.
Victor raised his pistol toward the aircraft.
I forced myself upright and tackled him.
We crashed onto the frozen ground.
He struck my wound.
Pain blinded me.
“You should have stayed broken,” he hissed.
I gripped his coat.
“You should never have touched my daughters.”
He reached for the pistol.
A small voice stopped him.
“Victor.”
Emma stood ten feet away holding Grace. Sophie and Lily were not with her, but seeing one of the triplets alive seemed to confuse him.
Grace extended her tiny hand.
Claire’s ruby pendant hung from her fingers.
Victor stared at it.
Emma said, “Claire left something for you.”
She pressed the hidden latch.
A recorded voice came from the pendant.
Claire’s voice.
“Victor, if Daniel is hearing this, you failed. You wanted him isolated because you were afraid of the man he would become when he remembered how to love.”
Victor’s face collapsed.
Claire continued.
“You were never his brother. Brothers protect what grief leaves behind.”
Victor lunged toward Emma.
I caught his ankle.
Elena struck him with the butt of her weapon and handcuffed him.
Behind us, Charles’s plane reached the end of the runway.
The damaged landing gear collapsed.
The aircraft spun into a snowbank.
Federal agents surrounded it before Charles could escape.
Emma knelt beside me.
Blood soaked my coat.
“Daniel.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve been shot.”
“Is Grace hurt?”
“No.”
She placed my daughter against my chest.
Grace stopped crying the moment she felt me.
I looked at Emma.
“You caught her.”
“You would have.”
“I was too far away.”
“So was I.”
“But you ran.”
Emma’s eyes filled with tears.
“Someone had to.”
The same words she had spoken in the barn.
The world blurred around me.
As the paramedics carried me away, I saw Victor sitting in the snow, staring at Claire’s pendant.
For the first time, he looked afraid.
Not of prison.
May you like
Not of death.
Of being forgotten.
