Chapter 6 – THE GUARD WHO WASN’T A GUARD

The heavy steel barrel of the pistol gleamed under the fluorescent hallway lights.

“Step back into the office, ladies,” the security guard said. His voice wasn’t the bored, lazy drawl he had used down in the lobby. It was sharp, precise, and entirely devoid of hesitation.

I instinctively pushed Emily behind me, backing slowly into the center of Richard’s massive office. Arthur Vance stood firm, shielding Dana.

Richard stumbled into the room behind the guard, wiping sweat from his pale forehead. “Thank God you were downstairs, Marcus. They found the tape. They found everything.”

“I told you keeping that tape was a fatal liability, Richard,” Marcus said, keeping the gun leveled at my chest. He closed the mahogany door behind him, engaging the heavy deadbolt.

“Who are you?” I demanded, my heart hammering wildly.

Marcus smirked, adjusting the grip on his weapon. “I’m the man who cleans up your husband’s messes, Mrs. Ellis. I made the Nevada strip mall creditors look the other way. I arranged the offshore shell accounts. And thirty years ago, I helped Richard dump David Lawson’s body into Lake Erie.”

My stomach turned to ice. Richard hadn’t acted alone. He had hired a professional cleaner, a man who had masqueraded as a security guard in his own building to keep an eye on the operation.

“The sirens,” Dana whispered, tears streaming down her face. “You didn’t call the real police, did you, Richard?”

Richard let out a shaky, pathetic laugh. “Of course not. If the police searched this office, I’d be ruined. I just played a siren sound effect through the external security speakers to panic you.”

He looked at me, his eyes full of malice. “I knew you were too smart to just sit in here, Maggie. I needed you to panic. I needed you to find the tape so I could finally destroy it, along with the only people who know about it.”

“You’re going to kill your own daughter?” Arthur asked, his voice booming with absolute authority despite the gun pointed at us.

Richard wouldn’t look at Emily. He stared at the floor. “Marcus knows how to make things look like an accident. A tragic fire in the corporate office. A faulty wire. It happens.”

“Hand over the hard drive and the tape, Margaret,” Marcus ordered, extending his free hand. “Make this easy on yourselves.”

I looked down at the hard drive in my left hand and the dictaphone in my right. This was my son’s freedom. This was David Lawson’s justice. If I handed them over, Matthew would rot in prison, and Emily and I would burn to death in this office.

“No,” I said quietly.

Marcus raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“I said no,” I repeated, my voice growing stronger. I locked eyes with Richard. “Thirty-four years, Richard. Thirty-four years I washed your clothes, cooked your meals, and balanced your checkbook. And you thought I was just a naive housewife.”

I took a deliberate step toward the massive floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city.

“What are you doing, Mom?” Emily asked, terror in her voice.

“I’m balancing the books,” I said.

I raised my arm and hurled the blue hard drive as hard as I could directly at the thick glass window.

The heavy metal drive didn’t break the tempered glass. But the loud, violent CRACK echoed through the room like a gunshot.

Marcus flinched, his gun wavering for a fraction of a second.

That was all Arthur Vance needed.

The sixty-year-old attorney lunged forward with surprising speed, swinging his heavy leather briefcase upward. The brass latches slammed directly into Marcus’s wrist.

The gun fired wildly, the suppressed bullet shattering the expensive glass chandelier above us. Crystal rained down like sharp hail.

Marcus roared in pain, dropping the pistol.

“Emily, run!” I screamed.

Emily didn’t run for the door. She dove for the floor, snatching the dropped gun before Marcus could recover. She scrambled backward, pointing the trembling weapon squarely at the cleaner’s chest.

“Nobody move!” Emily shouted, her hands shaking violently.

Marcus froze. Richard dropped to his knees, covering his head, a pathetic coward to the very end.

“Call 911, Dana,” Arthur ordered, breathing heavily as he rubbed his bruised shoulder.

Dana scrambled for the desk phone, dialing frantically.

I walked over to Richard. He was kneeling in the shards of broken crystal, weeping silently. I felt absolutely nothing for him. No love. No pity. Only a cold, profound clarity.

“It’s over, Richard,” I said softly.

Suddenly, the heavy mahogany door rattled. Someone was pounding on it from the outside.

“Columbus Police! Open the door!” a deep voice shouted.

We all froze.

“Did you actually call them?” I asked Richard.

Richard shook his head frantically. “No! I swear!”

The door crashed open, splintering the wooden frame. Two heavily armed SWAT officers burst into the room, their rifles raised.

“Drop the weapon!” they screamed at Emily.

Emily immediately dropped the gun, raising her hands in the air.

A detective in a trench coat walked into the room behind the SWAT team. He looked at the chaos, the broken glass, the kneeling men.

Then he looked directly at me.

“Margaret Ellis?” the detective asked.

“Yes,” I breathed.

“We received an anonymous tip ten minutes ago,” the detective said, pulling a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “A woman called 911. She said she had evidence that her brother-in-law was laundering money and plotting a murder in this building tonight.”

I stared at him in shock. “My brother-in-law?”

The detective nodded. “The caller identified herself as Claire. She said she was done being quiet.”

Share