Chapter 8 - The Burning Tower
Smoke filled the stairwell before I reached the sixth floor.
I covered my mouth with my shirt and kept climbing.
Behind me, Detective Brooks shouted through the radio clipped to my belt.
“Connor, turn around!”
I knew she was right.
I also knew the tower.
The garage fire looked larger than it was because Victor had ignited construction materials near the ventilation shafts. The concrete structure would hold, but smoke could kill anyone trapped above.
I reached the ventilation corridor on the seventeenth floor and found two tactical officers.
One had injured his ankle during the blackout. The other was helping him down.
“Suspect moved toward the roof,” the officer said. “Hostage may still be on nineteen.”
I continued upward.
On the nineteenth floor, Teresa’s chair stood near an open window.
Empty.
Rope lay on the ground.
A trail of blood led toward the east stairwell.
“Mom!”
No answer.
Then I heard metal scraping.
Teresa crawled from behind a stack of drywall.
Her face was bruised. One wrist was still tied.
“Connor?”
I knelt beside her and cut the rope with a utility knife.
“Can you walk?”
“I think so.”
“Where’s Victor?”
“The roof.”
“Why did he leave you?”
“He thinks you brought the drive.”
She grabbed my arm.
“He has a gun.”
I helped her stand.
“We’re going down.”
“No.”
She pulled away.
“You don’t understand. He set charges near the support cables for the service lift.”
“The lift isn’t carrying anyone.”
“The police are using the ventilation corridor. The cables run beside it.”
If Victor detonated the charges, part of the access structure could collapse.
I radioed Brooks.
The signal broke, but enough passed through.
“Evacuate east corridor… explosives… roof.”
Teresa leaned against a column.
“I can’t go farther.”
“You have to.”
She looked at me.
“I did terrible things.”
“This isn’t the time.”
“I believed he loved me.”
“Mom.”
“I thought after your father left, no one would ever choose me. Then Victor said I had given my whole life to you and deserved something back.”
“You could have asked for help.”
“I didn’t want help. I wanted power.”
The honesty shocked me.
Smoke rolled across the ceiling.
“I hated Amy because she had what I wanted,” Teresa said. “You listened to her. You built a life with her. Every time you chose your wife, I felt abandoned.”
“That wasn’t abandonment.”
“I know.”
Her voice broke.
“I know now.”
A gunshot echoed above us.
I pulled Teresa behind a column.
Victor appeared on the stair landing.
His gray suit was covered in dust. Blood stained one sleeve.
“You always were sentimental, Connor.”
He aimed the gun.
“You could have left her,” I said.
“She knows too much.”
“So do I.”
“That is why you’re here.”
He stepped closer.
Teresa moved in front of me.
Victor laughed.
“Now you protect him?”
“I should have protected him years ago.”
“You used him.”
“So did you.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
He aimed at Teresa.
I pushed her down as the gun fired.
The bullet struck concrete.
I rushed Victor before he could fire again.
We hit the floor.
The gun slid toward the open edge of the building.
Victor punched me in the jaw. I drove my shoulder into his chest. We crashed into scaffolding, sending metal poles across the floor.
He was stronger than he looked.
But I had spent twenty years on construction sites. I knew how to move on unfinished surfaces.
When he lunged again, I stepped aside.
His foot landed on loose plastic sheeting.
He slipped toward the open window.
For one second, half his body hung over the edge.
I grabbed his wrist.
Victor stared up at me.
“Let me fall.”
It sounded like a challenge.
Perhaps he believed killing him would make me like him.
I tightened my grip.
“No.”
Teresa crawled toward us and helped pull him back.
Tactical officers reached the floor seconds later.
They arrested Victor.
Bomb technicians found three improvised charges near the service structure. Only one had partially detonated, causing the garage fire.
Firefighters guided us downstairs.
Outside, paramedics placed Teresa on a stretcher.
She looked at me.
“Will you come with me?”
I thought of Amy.
Of Oliver.
Of forty-three recordings.
“No.”
Pain crossed her face.
“I need to go home to my family.”
“I’m your family.”
“You are my mother. But Amy and Oliver are the family I failed to protect.”
She closed her eyes.
“I understand.”
I did not know whether she truly did.
But for once, understanding was not required.
Detective Brooks approached.
“You disobey instructions, entered a burning building, and interfered with an active operation.”
“I know.”
“You also provided information that prevented officers from walking into an explosive trap.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Not tonight.”
She looked toward Teresa.
“She has agreed to cooperate.”
My mother gave investigators access to an encrypted online account. Victor had stored financial records, forged documents, and lists of previous victims.
The evidence would help recover millions.
It would also guarantee that neither of them could explain away what happened.
When I returned to the safe house, Amy opened the door.
She saw the blood on my shirt and slapped me.
Then she wrapped her arms around me.
“You promised to protect us.”
“I know.”
“Running into a burning building is not protection.”
“I know.”
“You could have died.”
“I know.”
She pulled back, crying.
“I can’t rebuild a marriage with a dead man.”
The sentence broke through the last of my adrenaline.
“I’m sorry.”
Oliver stirred in her arms.
I touched his cheek.
He opened his eyes and reached for me.
I held my son while Amy rested her head against my shoulder.
The crisis was over.
But survival was not healing.
May you like
That would require something harder than running into fire.
It would require changing the part of me that had allowed the danger inside our home in the first place.
