Chapter 5 - The Autopsy of an Eleven-Year Empire
"Stop right there, Ethan."
Harrison Vance intercepted me twenty yards from the ambulance. Two private security guards in slate-gray parkas stepped up behind him, their hands folded formally across their tactical vests. They weren't small-town deputies bound by county protocols; they were off-duty state troopers hired on a private retainer by Clara’s trust.
"She’s being transferred to Aurora," I said, my voice dead. "Let me ride in the chase car. I don't need to speak to her. I just need to be at the hospital."
"You don't have a car, Ethan," Harrison said, checking his watch. "And by four o'clock today, you won't have a company."
"Take it," I whispered.
Harrison stopped. He looked at me, his eyes narrowing slightly beneath his snow cap. "What did you say?"
"Take the company," I said. I pulled my wallet from my coat, took out my primary Blackwood executive credential, my titanium Amex, and the master keycard to our Fifth Avenue penthouse, and let them drop into the snow between our feet. "Take the equity. Call Julian Ward. Tell him I’m surrendering my voting shares. Tell the board I resign as executive chairman effective five seconds ago. Take the house in Aspen. Take the compound in Sagaponack. Take every single cent of the three hundred million in the liquid asset reserve."
Harrison didn't look down at the cards.
"You think that’s what this is about?" he asked, disgust coating every syllable. "You think you can write a check for Clara’s uterus? You think you can settle an avalanche with an equity surrender?"
"I don't want the money, Harrison!" I screamed, the sound tearing through the quiet mountain air, causing the EMTs loading Clara’s transport to look over their shoulders. "I don't give a damn about Blackwood Holdings! I don't give a damn about New York! I want my wife! I want to tell her that I know about the baby! I want to tell her that I know what I did!"
"If you tell her that," Harrison said, stepping so close his chest bumped mine, "you will kill whatever tiny shred of peace she has left. She recorded that video because she thought she was dying, Ethan. She didn't want you to know because she knew—she *knew*—that your ego would turn her tragedy into your penance."
He reached out and jabbed a finger directly into the center of my chest, right over my bruised ribs.
"You want to carry the cross, Ethan? You want to feel like a tragic, broken hero who lost his family to an act of nature and his own tragic flaws? No. You don't get that dignity. You’re not a tragic hero. You’re just a pathetic, middle-aged coward who left his wife to freeze while he bought glass for a hooker."
Harrison turned his back on me.
"The paperwork is filed. If you attempt to enter Anschutz, you will be arrested on sight. If you attempt to contact her through third parties, the protective order becomes a felony indictment. Stay in your snow, Ethan. It’s what you bought."
The transport ambulance pulled out of the bay, its heavy tires crunching rhythmically over the packed ice. The sirens were off, but the flashing red lights reflected against the snowbanks, growing smaller and smaller as the vehicle merged onto the interstate toward the Eisenhower Tunnel.
Toward Denver. Toward life. Away from me.
I stood alone in the parking lot until the sun began to dip behind the jagged silhouette of the Tenmile Range. The temperature plummeted immediately, dropping from twenty degrees to near zero in the span of thirty minutes.
My feet had lost all sensation. My ears burned with the initial pins-and-needles of frostbite. My Italian coat was soaked with melted ice and dried blood.
I didn't get back into the Yukon.
May you like
Instead, I turned toward the mountains. Toward the dirt road that wound twelve miles up into the high timber, toward the cabin where eleven years ago I had promised an extraordinary girl that I would never stop searching for her in the dark.
***
