Chapter 7 - THE BULLET
Arthur collapsed before I understood what had happened.
Russell caught him.
Federal agents dragged us behind the armored vehicle as a second shot struck the pavement.
“Sniper!” someone shouted.
The paramedics treating Victor abandoned the stretcher long enough to pull my father into cover.
Blood poured from a wound high in Arthur’s shoulder.
Not the chest.
Not the heart.
I clung to that distinction while Dr. Morris pressed both hands against the injury.
“Arthur, look at me.”
My father’s face had turned gray.
He looked at me instead.
“Are you hurt?”
The question broke something inside me.
He had been shot, and he was still checking whether I was safe.
“No.”
My voice shook.
“I’m here.”
“Good.”
His eyes closed.
“Dad!”
“He’s breathing,” Dr. Morris said.
“Stay back.”
Agents found the shooter’s position thirty yards into the trees.
Martin was gone.
A rifle remained beneath a camouflage tarp.
The firing mechanism had been connected to a remote trigger.
Martin had not needed to stay and risk capture.
He had arranged the yard like everything else.
Victor.
Kendra.
The fire.
My father’s arrival.
Each person had been placed exactly where Martin wanted them.
Arthur was transported to a Milwaukee trauma center.
The bullet had shattered part of his collarbone and damaged an artery but missed his lung.
Surgeons operated for three hours.
I sat in the waiting room wearing his blood on my hands.
Victor was treated two floors below for a fractured wrist, cracked ribs, smoke inhalation, and a concussion.
Kendra suffered cuts and bruises.
Police placed guards outside both rooms.
Russell sat across from me.
His suit jacket was stained red.
“This is my fault,” I said.
“No.”
“I insisted on going.”
“Arthur made his own decision.”
“He went because of me.”
“He has made every important decision of his life because of you.”
“That does not make it less my fault.”
Russell leaned forward.
“Guilt feels useful because it creates the illusion that you controlled the event.”
“I did control parts of it.”
“You created an experiment.”
“Yes.”
“You did not pull the trigger.”
Neither statement erased the other.
At midnight, the surgeon entered.
Arthur was stable.
The relief was so powerful it felt like pain.
I was allowed to see him briefly.
Machines surrounded the bed.
My father looked smaller beneath the hospital blanket.
For most of my life, Arthur had seemed like infrastructure.
Permanent.
Unmovable.
I had forgotten that fortresses were made of materials that could break.
His eyes opened.
“You look terrible,” he whispered.
I laughed once, then cried.
“You were shot.”
“I noticed.”
“Why did you come?”
“Because you did.”
“You could have died.”
“So could you.”
“I’m not a child.”
“No.”
He studied my face.
“That was the mistake I made.”
“What mistake?”
“Believing protection only meant standing between you and danger.”
His voice weakened.
“Sometimes it means refusing to help you enter it.”
I knew he meant the experiment.
My father had opposed it, but eventually he had agreed to preserve my secret.
He allowed Hartwell executives to create opportunities for Victor.
He funded the stage while warning me not to perform.
“I asked you to help,” I said.
“I should have said no.”
“Would I have listened?”
“No.”
“Then why blame yourself?”
“Because fathers are allowed irrational guilt too.”
He closed his eyes again.
Before I left, he caught my hand.
“Voss did not begin this with Victor.”
“What do you mean?”
“He has been moving against Hartwell for years.”
“How long?”
“Since before your mother died.”
My breath stopped.
My mother, Amelia Lane Hartwell, had died in a car accident when I was twenty-one.
The driver responsible was never identified.
Arthur opened his eyes.
“Russell has a file.”
“What file?”
“The one I told him never to show you.”
I looked through the glass wall at Russell.
He stood in the corridor speaking to federal agents.
“What is in it?”
My father’s hand tightened weakly around mine.
“Proof that Martin Voss may have killed your mother.”
Outside the room, an officer approached Russell.
Victor had regained consciousness.
He refused to speak to police.
He would speak only to me.
I entered his room at one in the morning.
Victor lay with one arm immobilized.
Soot darkened the edges of his hair.
For once, he had nothing polished left.
No tailored suit.
No perfect apartment.
No audience.
He looked at me.
“Is Arthur alive?”
“Yes.”
Victor closed his eyes.
“I didn’t know about the rifle.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because Martin intended to blame the shot on me.”
“How?”
“He put residue on my coat.”
Victor nodded toward an evidence bag on the counter.
Police had recovered the coat from the warehouse.
“He said the fire would destroy everything else.”
“What did he want from you?”
“My signature.”
“You gave him signatures for years.”
“The final document transfers voting control after Arthur becomes incapacitated.”
My stomach tightened.
The shot was not only revenge.
It was corporate procedure.
“If my father dies, who gains authority?”
Victor looked at me.
“You do.”
“Then why shoot him?”
“Because Martin believes the board will never accept you after the experiment becomes public.”
He was right.
My reputation had collapsed in less than a day.
“Who would they accept?”
“Russell.”
I stared at him.
Victor’s voice dropped.
“Martin’s plan requires Russell Kent to become interim chairman.”
“That does not mean Russell is involved.”
“I didn’t say he was.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“Martin has been sending money through accounts connected to Russell for eleven years.”
I stepped back.
“No.”
Victor smiled without humor.
“You wanted to see what people became when they thought you were powerless.”
May you like
He looked through the glass at Russell.
“Maybe you should ask what they became when they thought your father trusted them.”
