Chapter 7 - The Funeral TrapVictor wanted Clara underground.
Not metaphorically.
He possessed a reinforced emergency bunker sixty feet beneath the estate with independent ventilation, food for thirty days, a surgical kit, and enough ammunition to defend a small country.
Clara refused.
“You are scheduled to be assassinated tomorrow.”
“I heard you the first six times.”
“You’re going into the bunker.”
“No.”
Victor stared across the breakfast table.
Dominic quietly moved his chair farther away.
Elias pretended to read his tablet.
Evan ate scrambled eggs while watching the argument with open fascination.
Victor leaned forward.
“This is not about independence.”
“It’s exactly about independence.”
“Someone has been tracking you for years.”
“And hiding underground tells us nothing about who.”
“It keeps you alive.”
“Temporarily.”
“That is generally the first requirement.”
Clara put down her coffee.
“Marcus’s schedule says final correction. That means they expect something specific tomorrow.”
Elias looked up.
“She’s right.”
Victor turned slowly.
Elias reconsidered.
“She is strategically right. I make no comment on the bunker.”
“Coward,” Clara said.
“Professional survivor.”
Evan raised his hand.
“Trap.”
Everyone looked at him.
He swallowed.
“Use Clara as bait.”
Victor’s expression suggested Evan had just volunteered for execution.
Evan pointed his fork toward him.
“You don’t like.”
“No.”
“Good plan though.”
“No.”
Clara smiled faintly.
“I like him more every day.”
Victor rubbed his forehead.
The date on Marcus’s schedule corresponded with a public event.
The funeral of Margaret Rowe.
Agent Reed had arranged it under heavy federal security.
Evan was expected to attend.
Clara’s name appeared on a list of requested guests found in Margaret’s apartment.
Margaret had written it before her death.
She had wanted Clara there.
That discovery hurt in a way Clara had not expected.
Perhaps Margaret had intended to apologize.
Perhaps accuse her.
Perhaps simply look at the woman she had hated for two years after learning the hatred had been misplaced.
Clara would never know.
The funeral began at eleven.
Rain fell softly over St. Matthew’s Cemetery.
Clara wore black.
Victor stood beside her.
He had resisted attending until Clara pointed out that if she was bait, the city’s most feared criminal standing three feet away made reasonably effective deterrence.
Federal agents surrounded the cemetery.
Kaine soldiers occupied rooftops beyond the perimeter.
Evan stood beside his mother’s coffin using a black cane.
His face remained expressionless.
Clara watched him.
Twenty-one years old.
His mother murdered.
His body permanently damaged.
His life transformed into evidence.
She moved toward him.
Evan looked at her.
“You came.”
“She invited me.”
“She wrote list after reading files.”
Clara nodded.
“I know.”
“She said something before men came.”
“What?”
Evan looked at the coffin.
“She said, ‘Find Clara. Tell her I was wrong.’”
Clara’s throat closed.
Evan continued.
“She cried.”
Clara looked down.
“I wish she hadn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because she had every reason to believe what they told her.”
Evan studied Clara.
“You forgive her?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
He nodded slowly.
Then he reached out.
His impaired right hand struggled.
Clara took it.
They stood together as the priest began speaking.
Victor watched from several yards away.
His gaze never stopped moving.
Windows.
Trees.
Cars.
Hands.
Clara knew he was counting threats.
Halfway through the service, a black sedan approached the cemetery gate.
Federal agents stopped it.
Nothing happened.
Then another vehicle arrived.
A hearse.
Clara frowned.
Margaret’s coffin was already there.
Victor saw it too.
His hand moved inside his coat.
“Down!”
The hearse exploded.
The blast lifted Clara from her feet.
She hit wet grass.
Sound disappeared.
Her ears rang.
Smoke rolled across the cemetery.
Victor was above her immediately.
“Clara!”
She saw his mouth move before hearing his voice.
“I’m fine.”
Gunfire erupted.
Federal agents returned fire toward the tree line.
Victor dragged Clara behind a stone monument.
“Evan!”
She looked.
Evan was on the ground near the coffin.
Agent Reed covered him.
A man wearing a funeral-home uniform emerged through smoke.
He carried no gun.
He walked directly toward Clara.
Victor raised his pistol.
The man shouted.
“Wait!”
Clara saw something in his hand.
A syringe.
Victor fired.
The bullet struck the man’s shoulder.
He spun.
The syringe fell.
Dominic tackled him.
“Alive!” Clara shouted.
Dominic looked disappointed.
The attack ended in less than three minutes.
Two shooters died.
One escaped.
The man Victor had shot survived.
They took him to Clara’s clinic.
His name was Owen Pike.
Former paramedic.
No criminal record.
Clara removed Victor’s bullet from his shoulder while Dominic stood nearby.
Pike laughed weakly.
“You’re really her.”
Clara stopped.
“Who?”
“Hayes.”
“Who sent you?”
Pike looked toward Victor.
“I want immunity.”
Victor almost smiled.
“You broke into a funeral carrying a syringe intended for my physician.”
“I didn’t say immunity from the government.”
Dominic leaned closer.
“Wrong room for negotiations.”
Clara held up one hand.
“What was in the syringe?”
Pike said nothing.
She picked it up.
Clear liquid.
“Lab.”
A technician took it.
Pike closed his eyes.
“They told me she had to die naturally.”
Victor’s face became expressionless.
“Who?”
“I never met them.”
“Then how were you paid?”
“Crypto. Instructions through encrypted email.”
“What instructions?”
Pike looked at Clara.
“Inject her. Femoral artery if possible. It would cause cardiac arrest within minutes.”
“Drug?”
“I don’t know.”
Clara stared at him.
“You were a paramedic.”
“I needed money.”
“That excuse is getting boring.”
Pike laughed bitterly.
“You think this started with you?”
Clara froze.
“What?”
He looked toward Victor.
“Ask him about the doctors.”
Victor stepped closer.
“What doctors?”
Pike swallowed.
“Your father’s doctors.”
The room became silent.
“Michael Kaine had three private physicians in his last year. One died in a car accident. One disappeared. One retired.”
Victor’s voice lowered.
“Name.”
“Dr. Samuel Wren.”
Elias immediately began searching.
Pike continued.
“Wren knows what happened.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the same people paying me have been looking for him.”
Elias looked up.
“Samuel Wren is alive.”
“Where?”
“Vermont.”
Victor reached for his phone.
Pike laughed.
“You’re late.”
Everyone looked at him.
“They found him yesterday.”
Clara’s pulse accelerated.
“How?”
“I was supposed to transport him.”
“Where?”
Pike hesitated.
Victor placed his pistol on the instrument tray.
Pike stared at it.
“Old psychiatric hospital outside Bellweather.”
Dominic recognized it.
“Closed fifteen years.”
Pike nodded.
“Underground service tunnels. Nobody goes there.”
Victor looked toward Elias.
“Teams ready in ten minutes.”
Clara removed her gloves.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
She stared at Victor.
He stared back.
Dominic sighed.
“I’ll warm up two cars.”
Victor ignored him.
“This could be a trap.”
“It is obviously a trap.”
“Which strengthens my argument.”
“Samuel Wren may know how your father died.”
“And?”
“And if they’ve been holding him, he may need a doctor.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
Clara stepped closer.
“You don’t get to protect me by turning me into furniture.”
His eyes held hers.
Finally:
“Stay behind me.”
“Five-eight.”
“What?”
“You keep forgetting.”
Victor closed his eyes briefly.
Evan watched them.
“You two married?”
Both turned.
“No,” Clara said.
“Absolutely not,” Victor said simultaneously.
Evan nodded.
“Sound married.”
Dominic laughed from the doorway.
Victor pointed at him.
“Car.”
“Yes, boss.”
Forty minutes later, the convoy reached Bellweather Psychiatric Hospital.
The abandoned structure rose from dead trees like a rotting cathedral.
Windows were boarded.
Graffiti covered the brick walls.
Victor’s team entered through a service tunnel.
Clara followed behind him.
The underground corridor smelled of mold.
They found blood after two hundred feet.
Fresh.
Then a body.
One of Pike’s associates.
Dead less than an hour.
More bodies appeared.
Someone had arrived before them.
At the end of the corridor, Clara heard coughing.
They entered an old treatment room.
An elderly man was chained to a radiator.
His face was bruised.
His clothes were soaked with sweat.
“Samuel Wren?”
The man raised his head.
His eyes focused on Victor.
Terror appeared.
“Michael?”
Victor stopped.
“No.”
Wren stared.
Then understanding came.
“Victor.”
Clara knelt.
“I’m a doctor.”
Wren laughed weakly.
“That profession hasn’t helped anyone in this room.”
She checked his pulse.
Rapid.
Dehydrated.
Possible infection.
“Who did this?”
Wren looked at Victor.
“I knew you’d eventually come.”
Victor crouched.
“Who killed my father?”
Wren’s eyes filled with tears.
“I did.”
Nobody moved.
Victor’s face became completely blank.
Clara slowly stood.
Wren whispered:
“But I didn’t know I was killing him.”
Victor stared at the old physician.
“What does that mean?”
Wren began crying.
“They changed his medication.”
“Who?”
Wren looked toward the doorway as though expecting someone.
“The people who built you.”
Victor frowned.
Wren’s next words barely carried.
“Your father’s death wasn’t about Michael.”
May you like
He looked directly at Victor.
“It was about putting you in his chair.”
