Chapter 6 - THE FIRST THING GRANT SAW WAS BLOOD
“Hannah!”
Grant dropped beside her.
His hands searched wildly.
Shoulder.
Face.
Neck.
Warm blood touched his fingers.
“Hannah.”
“I’m okay.”
Her voice came through clenched teeth.
Grant nearly collapsed.
“Where?”
“My arm.”
The bullet had grazed her upper arm.
Painful.
Bleeding.
Not catastrophic.
Behind them, Daniel shouted for medics to stay back until they had cover.
Grant pulled Hannah behind a stone pillar.
Another shot struck the pavement.
Hale’s voice echoed from the building.
“That was your warning.”
Grant’s face transformed.
He had known Hale for more than twenty years.
Shared Christmas dinners.
Funerals.
Birthdays.
Illness.
Secrets.
Now that familiar voice was shooting at a woman holding nothing but the terror of a mother.
Grant whispered:
“I’m going to kill him.”
Hannah grabbed his coat.
“No.”
“He has Lucy.”
“Exactly.”
“Then we get her first.”
Grant breathed once.
Twice.
Control returned.
Daniel reached them from behind the barrier.
“Police have angles on two windows.”
“Do not fire unless Hale exposes himself away from Lucy.”
Grant said.
Daniel nodded.
“He knows they’re here.”
“Of course.”
Grant lifted his head slightly.
A strange pale rectangle existed somewhere ahead.
The hospital entrance.
He could not see its details.
But he could distinguish it from the darker brick.
His right eye ached.
Daniel noticed him staring.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Grant turned toward Hale’s voice.
“What do you want?”
“The Boston file.”
“You already know what’s in it.”
“I want the imaging.”
“Why?”
“So this ends.”
Grant laughed once.
“You think destroying one scan restores five years of lies?”
Silence.
Then Hale answered:
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain.”
“You were supposed to die at Pier 17.”
Hannah stopped breathing.
Daniel’s hand moved toward his weapon.
Grant stood very still.
“Continue.”
Hale’s voice came from deeper inside.
“When you survived, Vane wanted to finish it.”
Grant’s expression hardened.
“And you stopped him?”
“Yes.”
Grant almost laughed.
“By blinding me.”
“You were already badly injured.”
“I preserved your life.”
“You drugged me.”
“I kept Vane convinced you could never identify what happened.”
Grant frowned.
“Identify?”
Hale paused.
Grant caught it.
“What did I see before the blast, Vernon?”
Another silence.
“You don’t remember.”
“Then tell me.”
Hale’s voice became tense.
“You saw Marcus Vane.”
The memory struck Grant not as an image but as fragments.
Caroline laughing.
Emma holding his hand.
Pier lights.
A man near a warehouse door.
Someone turning.
Gray coat?
No.
Vane had been there.
Grant’s breathing changed.
Hale continued:
“Vane believed you recognized him.”
“He ordered the second device moved closer to your car.”
Hannah covered her mouth.
Grant’s voice became lethal.
“You knew there were two devices?”
Hale said nothing.
“Vernon.”
“I didn’t plant them.”
“But you knew.”
“I was there because Vane called me.”
“Why?”
“He had a heart condition.”
Grant laughed in disbelief.
“You went to medically supervise a bombing?”
“No.”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen with Caroline and Emma there.”
The words destroyed whatever restraint Grant had left.
“You knew my wife and daughter were on that pier.”
“I tried to tell Vane to stop.”
“You walked away.”
“I thought he had.”
Grant’s hands shook.
Five years.
Caroline.
Emma.
Funeral coffins he never saw.
Lucy crying inside the building.
Hannah bleeding beside him.
Hale continued:
“When you survived, I told Vane you had permanent blindness.”
“It bought time.”
Grant’s voice dropped.
“Then why keep medicating me?”
“Because your eyes began improving during the second year.”
Daniel swore.
Hannah closed her eyes.
Grant stood frozen.
Hale said:
“I noticed response.”
“Movement.”
“Light detection.”
“You never told me.”
“If Vane learned you were recovering, he would kill you.”
Grant whispered:
“So you chose for me.”
“I kept you alive.”
“No.”
Grant’s face turned toward the doorway.
“You kept me useful.”
Hale went quiet.
Grant understood.
“Vane paid you.”
Silence.
“Six point four million.”
Hale’s breathing came through the building.
Grant continued.
“He paid you to report on me.”
“To keep me blind enough that I never became a threat.”
“You were safe.”
“Caroline and Emma were dead.”
Grant’s voice broke.
“I was not safe.”
Hannah reached for his hand.
Grant let her hold it.
Then a smaller voice echoed from somewhere inside.
“Mr. Grant?”
Lucy.
Grant turned instantly.
“I’m here.”
“I’m scared.”
His face changed.
The mafia boss vanished.
Only Grant remained.
“I know, sweetheart.”
“Mommy?”
Hannah shouted:
“I’m here, baby!”
Lucy began crying harder.
Hale yelled something.
Lucy screamed.
Grant moved toward the entrance.
Daniel blocked him.
“No.”
Grant grabbed his jacket.
“She is three.”
“I know.”
“Move.”
“Listen.”
Daniel pointed toward the building.
“There’s another door on the east side.”
“Police have camera footage.”
“One man besides Hale.”
“Who?”
“Eric Sloan.”
Grant remembered the traitorous guard.
Daniel continued.
“Sloan keeps moving between Lucy and the rear corridor.”
“We can separate them.”
Grant lowered his voice.
“How?”
Daniel explained only the essential part.
Authorities would create a controlled diversion from the opposite side.
No reckless assault.
No shooting through walls.
No gambling with Lucy’s life.
Grant would continue talking to Hale.
Keep his attention forward.
It began ninety seconds later.
A loud crash sounded on the east side.
Hale shouted.
Footsteps ran.
Sloan.
Grant heard movement inside.
Different distances.
Different shoes.
One heavy.
One dragging slightly.
Hale’s right-sided limp.
Grant stepped into the doorway.
Daniel cursed.
“Grant.”
He ignored him.
“Hale!”
The doctor answered from the lobby.
“Stop!”
Grant moved forward.
The darkness inside was familiar.
Better than light would have been for anyone else.
Broken building.
Echoes.
Concrete.
Air currents.
Grant counted.
Five steps.
Ten.
Fifteen.
Lucy cried ahead and right.
Hale’s shoes scraped farther left.
Grant angled toward Lucy.
A sudden blur crossed his right eye.
Shape.
Movement.
He froze.
Something vertical.
A person.
Hale.
Maybe.
Grant could not identify a face.
But he saw a shadow.
His first real shape in five years.
Hale raised an arm.
Metal caught the weak security light.
For one impossible second, Grant saw a tiny white flash.
Gun.
He moved before thought.
The shot exploded.
Grant threw himself sideways.
Pain burned across his ribs as he hit the floor.
Daniel fired from the doorway only after Hale’s weapon discharged.
One controlled shot.
Hale cried out.
The gun hit the floor.
Police rushed forward.
Grant crawled toward Lucy’s screaming.
“Hannah!”
Hannah ignored every command to stay outside.
She ran in.
“Lucy!”
“Mommy!”
The child was tied to a chair behind an overturned nurses’ station.
Hannah reached her first.
She tore at the tape.
Lucy launched into her arms.
Grant stopped several feet away.
He could hear them.
Hannah crying.
Lucy sobbing.
Mother and daughter breathing into each other.
Then that pale shape appeared again.
Two shapes.
Together.
Grant’s right eye filled with painful gray.
Not faces.
Not color.
But form.
He whispered:
“I can see you.”
Hannah froze.
“What?”
Grant’s voice shook.
“I can see…”
He lifted one trembling hand.
“Something.”
Lucy turned.
“Me?”
Grant laughed and cried at the same time.
“I think so.”
She ran to him.
Hannah nearly stopped her.
Then didn’t.
Lucy threw both arms around Grant’s neck.
He closed his eyes.
Held her.
Police handcuffed Vernon Hale twenty feet away.
Hale had been shot through the upper leg.
Alive.
Conscious.
He stared at Grant.
“You don’t understand what Vane will do.”
Grant turned toward his voice.
This time, when he opened his eyes, he saw a blurred patch where Hale sat.
Not darkness.
A man-shaped stain against gray.
Grant smiled.
“No, Vernon.”
Hale’s face went pale.
Grant continued:
“He doesn’t understand what Lucy did.”
Lucy hugged him tighter.
“She turned on the light.”
Outside, Eric Sloan was arrested trying to escape through a maintenance tunnel.
No officers were killed.
Hannah’s arm required six stitches.
Lucy had bruises around one wrist but no serious injuries.
Grant refused hospital treatment until mother and daughter were examined first.
Dr. Ross arrived from Boston that night after Daniel called her.
She examined Grant at a private New York hospital.
His right eye was responding more strongly.
His left remained severely impaired.
When Ross finished, she removed her glasses.
Grant almost smiled.
“I’m learning that means you’re worried.”
“It means I’m thinking.”
“Same thing.”
Ross sat.
“The medication effects appear to be diminishing.”
“How much vision comes back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will I see faces?”
“I don’t know.”
“Read?”
“I don’t know.”
“Drive?”
“Slow down.”
“I don’t like that phrase.”
“I’ve noticed.”
She leaned forward.
“There is damage.”
“Real damage.”
“Vernon Hale did not invent your injuries.”
“But?”
“But he may have prevented us from knowing how much recovery your nervous system was capable of.”
Grant looked toward the window.
A faint pale rectangle existed there.
He could tell now.
Window.
For five years, he had stood before windows and seen nothing.
Now he could distinguish one from the wall.
He laughed softly.
Ross watched.
“What?”
“It’s there.”
“What?”
“The window.”
His voice cracked.
“I know where the window is.”
Hannah stood in the doorway.
Her injured arm was in a sling.
Lucy slept against her shoulder.
Grant turned toward them.
Two shapes.
One tall.
One small.
His heart stopped.
“Hannah?”
“Yes.”
“Come closer.”
She did.
The blurred shape grew.
Grant lifted his hand.
Hannah took it.
“Your hair is light.”
She laughed through tears.
“You already knew that.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“I mean…”
His breathing broke.
“I can see that it’s lighter than the room.”
Hannah began crying.
Grant reached toward her face.
Stopped before touching.
“May I?”
She nodded even though he could barely see the movement.
“Yes.”
His fingertips found her cheek.
Her temple.
A tear.
Then Lucy stirred.
Her small hand reached out and touched his wrist.
Grant smiled.
“Flashlight criminal.”
Lucy opened sleepy eyes.
“Eyes awake?”
“A little.”
She smiled.
Then went back to sleep.
For one moment, Grant believed the worst might finally be ending.
Then Daniel entered.
His expression destroyed the thought.
“Grant.”
“What?”
“Hale is talking.”
“Good.”
Daniel shook his head.
“No.”
“Not good.”
Grant turned.
“Why?”
“Marcus Vane never left the country.”
Grant became still.
Daniel continued.
“He has been in New York for five years.”
“Where?”
“Close.”
“How close?”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“He owns the holding company that bought the property beside your estate three years ago.”
Hannah looked at Grant.
Grant stared toward the pale window.
On the other side of twelve acres of winter trees stood a mansion nobody had paid attention to.
A mansion belonging to a corporation.
A corporation belonging to the man who had ordered the explosion that killed Grant’s wife and daughter.
For three years, Marcus Vane had been living next door.
May you like
Watching a blind man wait in the dark.
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