CHAPTER 7: THE FOURTH FAMILY
Rebecca’s image filled the screen.
The wound in the laboratory had been staged.
The blood had been real, but the injury had not been fatal. She had allowed herself to be carried upstairs, changed clothes inside the medical station and disappeared through a staff passage.
Elias immediately checked the officer network.
“Two security badges are missing.”
Rebecca had help.
“Rebecca,” I said, “put down the detonator.”
She laughed.
“You still think I work for you.”
“You worked with my mother.”
“I worked for the truth.”
My mother looked at her.
“This was not our agreement.”
“No, Helena. Our agreement ended when you refused to expose Arthur.”
My mother’s name echoed through the gallery.
Helena Vale.
For eleven years, the world had considered her dead.
Rebecca placed the metal case on the hood of the vehicle.
“The Meridian network was never controlled by three families,” she said. “There was always a fourth.”
Samuel Hawthorne closed his eyes.
I turned toward him.
“You knew.”
Samuel stared at Rebecca.
“I thought they were gone.”
“Who?” I demanded.
Rebecca answered.
“The Shaw family.”
Her father, Thomas Shaw, had been the museum’s chief restoration expert twenty-three years earlier. He authenticated the artifacts brought into the Hawthorne collection.
When he discovered the trafficking network, he threatened to expose it.
Three days later, he died in an apartment fire.
The official report called it an electrical accident.
Rebecca had been sixteen.
“You joined the museum to avenge him,” I said.
“I joined to finish his work.”
“By selling the ledger?”
“By destroying every family connected to it.”
She lifted the detonator.
Grant looked at Gideon.
“Did you kill her father?”
“No.”
Samuel gave a bitter laugh.
Gideon turned toward him.
“Be careful.”
“You ordered the building sealed,” Samuel said. “Arthur paid the fire inspector. I removed the museum records.”
Rebecca looked at the three older men represented in the room.
One physically present.
One holding Helena hostage.
One watching remotely from Vale Manor.
“The founders,” she said. “All still protecting one another.”
My mother took a step toward her.
“Rebecca, there are hundreds of people upstairs.”
“People who watched Grant attack your daughter.”
“They are not all guilty.”
“They are all witnesses.”
“That is exactly why they must live.”
Rebecca’s hand tightened around the detonator.
Gideon slowly moved his gun away from Helena.
He was preparing to shoot Rebecca.
“Don’t,” Grant said.
His father ignored him.
Grant lunged toward the gallery camera, as though he could physically reach through it.
“Father, don’t shoot her!”
Gideon raised the weapon.
My mother moved first.
She struck his arm.
The gun fired into the vehicle’s windshield.
Rebecca pressed the detonator.
Nothing happened.
She pressed it again.
Her expression changed.
Elias held up a small electronic device.
“We blocked the signal.”
Rebecca stared into the camera.
“You cannot block a physical trigger.”
One of Gideon’s men ran toward the vehicle.
A hidden panel opened beneath the driver’s door.
Three red lights appeared.
Elias checked the structural system.
“She armed a countdown.”
The screen displayed sixty seconds.
Panic consumed the main gallery.
Guests rushed toward the sealed exits.
Security officers tried to maintain order.
“Can you disable it?” I asked.
“Not remotely.”
“Then open the loading bay doors.”
“That would give Gideon an exit.”
“It would also let them drive the bomb away from the foundation.”
“There isn’t enough time.”
Grant stepped forward.
“Let me go down there.”
“No.”
“My father’s driver taught me how to operate that vehicle.”
“You will run.”
“Where? The museum is sealed.”
Thirty-eight seconds.
Grant looked at the screen.
“My father will never save them.”
He was right.
Gideon was already moving toward the loading bay’s private escape door, leaving my mother and his men beside the vehicle.
Grant met my eyes.
“I hurt you because I believed no one could stop me.”
Twenty-nine seconds.
“I was wrong.”
He extended his hands toward Elias.
“Keep the restraints on. Put an officer beside me. But let me move the vehicle.”
My mother struck the loading bay release button.
The armored door began rising.
Twenty seconds.
I made the decision.
“Release him.”
Elias removed one restraint and kept the other attached to his own wrist.
They ran toward the freight shaft.
On the screen, Gideon disappeared through the private tunnel.
My mother pulled one of the injured guards away from the vehicle.
Rebecca stood frozen.
She had prepared to destroy her enemies.
She had not prepared to stand beside the explosion.
Ten seconds.
Grant and Elias reached the loading bay.
Grant climbed into the driver’s seat.
The engine roared.
Five.
Four.
The vehicle accelerated toward the open loading door.
Three.
Two.
It crossed the threshold.
One.
The feed turned white.
The explosion shook the entire museum.
The glass ceiling cracked.
A section of marble collapsed near the auction stage.
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Then every screen went black.
I screamed Grant’s name before I could stop myself.
