Chapter 6 - A Lethal Acceleration
The room felt as though the atmospheric pressure had dropped to absolute zero.
Wallace was sweating profusely now, a gray film glistening across his forehead. "Christopher... leave her be. She doesn't understand the palliative regimen. Nora, please. Step aside. This is concentrated potassium to balance his electrolyte deficit. It’s completely standard."
"Potassium chloride via rapid central line bolus causes instantaneous ventricular fibrillation," I said, looking directly at Wallace. "You know that, Doctor. And you know that pushing that syringe is first-degree murder under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 265."
Wallace took a step back, his face turning the color of wet chalk. "What... what did you say?"
Christopher’s face darkened from arrogant irritation into murderous fury. He reached inside his suit coat, his hand drifting toward his inner breast pocket where the outline of a compact snub-nosed revolver was clearly visible beneath the silk lining.
"You've been snooping," Christopher hissed, his voice dropping into a guttural snarl. "You ignorant little charity case. You went through Wallace’s bag."
"I don't need to go through his bag to know what a lethal injection looks like," I said, refusing to back down. "And I know about the offshore accounts in Jersey. I know about the four-hundred-thousand-dollar transfer scheduled for this morning."
Wallace dropped the syringe. It clattered against the hardwood floor, the plastic plunger rattling.
"Christopher, she knows," Wallace panicked, his voice rising to an hysterical pitch. "She knows everything! I told you we should have sent him to a hospice facility! I told you this was insane!"
"Shut up!" Christopher roared, turning on the doctor. "Shut your pathetic mouth, you drunk!"
Christopher turned back to me, his hand coming out of his coat with the small black revolver. He raised the barrel and pointed it directly at my forehead.
"You stupid, sanctimonious bitch," Christopher whispered, his knuckles white against the checkered grip. "You could have taken your ten thousand dollars and bought your brat a life. Now neither of you is leaving this estate."
From the bassinet, Theodore suddenly erupted into a shrill, terrified wail, the sound slicing through the tension like a razor blade.
"Christopher, don't!" Wallace screamed, cowering behind the bedside armchair. "Not with a gun! The noise—the servants—"
"The servants are mine!" Christopher shouted. "The guards are mine! Everything in this goddamned house is mine!"
"Not quite everything, Christopher," a deep, thunderous voice cut through the room.
Christopher froze.
The color drained from his face as if someone had pulled a plug at the base of his skull. His eyes darted slowly, mechanically, toward the center of the four-poster bed.
Raymond Winslow threw the silver duvet aside with both arms.
He swung his legs over the edge of the mattress and planted his bare feet firmly on the mahogany floorboards. His back was straight, his chest broad, his gray eyes burning with the cold, terrible fury of an awakened titan. In his right hand, Raymond held the heavy brass bedside lamp, its cord ripped clean from the wall outlet.
"Uncle...?" Christopher gasped, his voice cracking into a high, childlike squeak.
"You were always a pathetic little thief, Christopher," Raymond said, his voice ringing like a bronze bell off the high ceiling. "Your father had the decency to fail with dignity. You don't even have the spine to kill a man with your own hands."
Christopher’s shock lasted exactly two seconds before raw, animal panic took over. He swung the barrel of the revolver away from me and aimed it directly at Raymond’s chest.
"Die!" Christopher screamed, his finger tightening on the trigger.
I didn't think. I didn't calculate.
I grabbed the heavy ceramic water basin from the bedside table and slammed it with all my strength into the side of Christopher’s skull.
The basin shattered into a dozen jagged shards. Christopher screamed as bone and ceramic collided, the impact knocking his arm wildly off course.
*BANG.*
The gunshot was deafening inside the enclosed bedroom. The bullet tore through the antique plaster of the ceiling, showering the bed in white dust and shattered lath.
Before Christopher could recover his balance or re-aim the weapon, Raymond lunged forward from the bed.
The months of chemical paralysis had weakened his joints, but his six-foot-two frame and the sheer momentum of his rage were unstoppable. He brought the solid brass lamp down across Christopher’s right forearm with a sickening, audible *CRACK*.
Christopher howled in agony, the revolver slipping from his broken fingers and skittering across the floor toward the bassinet.
Raymond caught his nephew by the throat with his left hand, driving him backward against the heavy mahogany wardrobe with a concussive crash that rattled the crystal mirrors.
"Forty years," Raymond growled into Christopher’s bleeding face, his fingers tightening like hydraulic clamps around the younger man's windpipe. "I built this name from nothing. And you thought you could drown me in my own bed with a bought doctor and a syringe?"
Wallace turned and bolted for the door like a terrified rat.
I scooped up the fallen revolver from the floor, stepped into the doorway, and leveled the barrel directly at Wallace’s chest.
"Take one more step, Doctor," I cocked the hammer with a sharp, metallic click, "and I’ll test your emergency trauma skills myself."
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Wallace slammed to a halt, raising his trembling hands into the air, his knees knocking together so violently he nearly collapsed against the doorframe.
***
