Chapter 10 - Open Waters
The universe narrowed to the diameter of a .38-caliber lead bullet.
In the fraction of a second between the click of the hammer and the strike of the firing pin, three things happened simultaneously.
Travis Keene didn't fire the shotgun. In the enclosed, hard-surfaced marble foyer, the buckshot spread would have caught me in the ricochet.
Instead, he threw his entire six-foot-two frame laterally through the air, his shoulder slamming into my ribs, knocking me flat onto the Turkish runner as his body covered mine like a slab of armor plate.
*Crack.*
The revolver fired.
The bullet struck the heavy limestone mantelpiece behind us, sending a spray of stone chips and plaster dust raining down onto the carpet.
At the exact same instant, the front entrance doors of the mansion blew inward with a deafening concussive crash.
"Kansas City Police! Drop the weapon!"
Four red laser dots appeared on Gavin Holloway’s chest.
From the shattered front portico, three tactical officers from the Jackson County Special Response Team moved into the foyer, their carbines up, their weapon-mounted lights turning the dark mansion into an arena of blinding, white-hot fury.
Gavin blinked into the lights, his revolver wavering at the end of his trembling arm.
"Gavin, put it down!" Warren Holloway’s voice screamed from behind the wall of tactical shields.
My father-in-law had come with them. He stood in the pouring rain just outside the threshold, his trench coat soaked, his face a ruin of tears and agony. "Son, please! Don't do this!"
Gavin looked at his father.
Then he looked down at the floor, where Travis lay across my body, his hands firmly anchoring my shoulders to the rug.
And then, Gavin looked toward the open French doors at the rear of the library—toward the dark, flooded backyard where the party tent lay in ruins.
He didn't fire another shot.
He spun on his heel, vaulted the mahogany handrail of the landing, and dropped twelve feet into the conservatory below. The sound of safety glass shattering echoed through the lower level as he threw himself through the rear window into the blackness of the ravine that sloped down toward Brush Creek.
"Suspect is mobile! Heading south toward the creek bed!" an officer shouted into his shoulder mic.
"Set the perimeter on Meyer Boulevard! Release the K-9 unit!"
The house erupted into shouting men, boots thundering across the marble, the crackle of tactical radios, and the blinding strobe of emergency lights arriving down the long driveway.
Travis didn't chase him.
He rolled off me, his breath coming in heavy, ragged gasps, his hands immediately checking my arms, my neck, my ribs. "Brooke. Are you hit? Look at me. Did it catch you?"
"I’m okay," I choked out, coughing against the plaster dust that filled the air. "Travis... I’m okay."
He pulled me up, his strong arms lifting me until I was sitting against the base of the grand staircase.
Warren Holloway pushed past the two officers who were clearing the library. He fell to his knees on the damp carpet beside us, his old hands reaching out, trembling violently, hovering over my splinted arm before falling into his lap.
"Brooke," Warren wept, his chest heaving with dry, broken sobs. "He’s gone. God forgive me, my boy is gone."
I looked at my father-in-law—the man who had given me the thumb drives, the man who had finally chosen the truth over the pedigree, but who was now left with nothing but the smoking ruins of his name.
"He was gone a long time ago, Warren," I said softly.
Two paramedics rushed through the entrance, carrying trauma bags, but I waved them off. I didn't need a gurney. I didn't need another hospital bed.
I stood up, using Travis’s arm for support, and walked out through the shattered front doors into the rain.
The storm was beginning to break. To the east, over the lower river valley, the clouds were tearing apart, revealing the first faint, pale gray sliver of dawn.
Parked along Meyer Boulevard were eight police cruisers, an ambulance, and three unmarked federal sedans.
Standing on the curb, flanked by two special agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s financial crimes division, was Diane Holloway.
They hadn't let her stay at the InterContinental.
She wore a gray cashmere sweater and slacks, her platinum hair disheveled by the wind, her wrists held in front of her, bound by heavy steel federal handcuffs.
As I walked down the stone steps beside Travis, her eyes found mine.
There was no laughter left in her face. The social grace, the imperious disdain, the multi-generational arrogance—all of it had been stripped away by the federal warrants being executed across three bank branches in the city.
She looked at me, her mouth opening to speak, to deliver one final, venomous defense of the dynasty she had destroyed.
I didn't stop. I didn't look back. I didn't give her the satisfaction of a single word.
I walked past her, my boots crunching on the wet gravel, straight to the passenger side of Travis’s black truck.
Travis opened the door for me, his large hand resting on the metal frame, his dark eyes watching the horizon where the dawn was slowly turning the Kansas City sky from bruise-purple to amber.
"Where do you want to go, Brooke?" he asked quietly.
I looked back one last time at 4821 Meyer Boulevard.
Beneath the shredded white tent, the lawn was a sea of mud and broken glass. Down in the wooded ravine by the creek, the sirens were wailing, the searchlights sweeping the swollen, churning water where Gavin had vanished into the darkness.
The police hadn't found him.
His revolver had been discovered on the muddy bank of Brush Creek twenty minutes ago, abandoned in the brush, but the man who had hit me in front of forty people had dissolved into the urban waterways of the city like a ghost.
Arthur Vance had already been arrested at his home on Mission Drive. The Northland syndicate had collapsed. The Holloway name was an obituary on the front page of every morning paper in the Midwest.
I looked at Travis Keene—the boy I had abandoned, the man who had returned with an army, the only person who had ever told me the truth about what safety really meant.
The open road stretched south toward the West Bottoms, toward the freight terminals, toward the iron bridges and the river docks where steel was driven deep into the bedrock, where things were built to survive the flood.
"Drive," I said.
Travis nodded. He closed my door, walked around to the driver’s side, and climbed into the cab.
May you like
The eight-cylinder diesel engine roared to life, its deep, rhythmic vibration humming through the steel floorboards like a heartbeat.
He put the truck into gear, pulled away from the curb, and left the Holloway estate behind us in the rearview mirror—a ruined fortress standing empty in the morning light, while the waters below continued to rise.
