Fatal Decision

by John Greenwood

  She whispers. "I'll tell you just leave him alone." Frank pulls a small notebook out of his back pocket. It looks similar to the one Stanton always carries. I see her mouth moving, but I can’t hear what is coming out. Frank is writing things down in his notebook.

  "I got it. We've got what we've always been owed brother." He looks at Shane and nods. I watch as Frank takes a step back. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Shane raise his gun and point it towards Mary. They're going to kill her. I try and sit up to stop him, but I can’t move. I close my eyes, take a deep breath and with all my will I jump up and grab Shane's arm. The gun rings out and I see the small explosion at the muzzle. I take his arm and twist it around and end up pointing the gun back towards him. I shove my finger into the trigger and push it forward causing it to fire into Shane's chest. I keep pulling the trigger until it doesn’t fire anymore. I see him fall backwards. The same empty eyes as Sorenson’s stare back at me. I quickly turn around. Frank has his gun aimed at me. I see his finger moving on the trigger. This is it. I prepare to die. I look over at Mary and she is laying on her back a few steps away. There’s blood flowing out the back of her head. I was too late. The bullet from Shane's gun struck. I look back at Frank. He has an odd look on his face. I close my eyes and think about Tommy and Michelle and how I'll never see them again. I hope they understand. I hear the loud explosion of the gun go off and I prepare for the impact, but instead I hear a voice behind me. I slowly open my eyes and Frank is lying on his back. His gun is somewhere behind him and there is a pool of blood on his face. I turn around and standing on the bottom of the stairs is Stanton. I try and smile, but he holds his hand up in the air and brushes past me towards Frank. I watch as he reaches down and checks for a pulse and breathing. Satisfied, he gets up and repeats the same thing with Shane behind me. I watch as he makes his way to Mary and shakes his head after checking her. I feel my insides explode and I begin to vomit.

  "Mr. Smith, are you okay?" I nod and turn my head as several uniformed officers storm down the stairs with their guns drawn. Stanton quickly waves them off and they lower their weapons.

  "Is she dead?" Stanton turns his head towards Mary and nods.

  "I'm sorry." I hear sirens and engines blaring away upstairs. I feel one of the officers place his arms underneath me and lead me up the stairs. We step out into the kitchen where I fell on top of Shane. It's a small outdated kitchen. There's a small oak table pushed off towards one side in front of a window with a couple of chairs. The officer leads me to one of the seats and I sit down. My head is throbbing profusely and the room is moving slightly. I watch as more police officers shuffle past me and rush down the stairs. A few minutes later, two paramedics are standing in front of me. One of them immediately goes to work on the back of my head. I feel him removing the bandage and applying some kind of ointment. It feels cold and wet. I feel myself go in and out of conscious several times, but eventually I come back and everything seems to steady out. They have me swallow several pills. I don’t even ask what they are. I hear them mumble something but I don’t even pay attention. I look around at the small kitchen. The walls are empty and painted in a faint yellowish hue. It looks like nothing has been touched up in years. I wonder if this is where Shane and Frank spent their time hoping to land the money. Maybe this is where they plotted out the whole thing to capture Tommy. A few minutes later, the paramedics walk me to a small room off the kitchen that has a couch and a small TV. I lie down and watch as they check my blood pressure again and perform their routine checks. They assure me I'll be okay and that my head doesn’t look too bad. They tell me the pain killers will start working shortly. I lie back and close my eyes and try and imagine none of this ever happened. I do feel some relief knowing that Frank and Shane are gone forever. I just feel bad that Mary had to join them. She had so much to offer. I wish I could have done more. I hear Stanton's voice a few minutes later in the kitchen. I look up and see him speaking with two police officers. A minute later he walks into the room and stands in front of me.

  "How you feeling?" I slowly sit up.

  "Much better," I look at the two paramedics who nod their heads.

  "Can you take walk with me outside for a minute?" We both look back at the paramedics. They nod again. Stanton reaches down and helps me up. He keeps a hand on my shoulder and leads me through the small room and back into the kitchen and out a door that I didn’t see before and onto the driveway. I slightly close my eyes as soon as I step outside from the bright sunlight. I see at least a dozen police cars with their blue lights circling and a few ambulances behind them. We're in an old-looking neighborhood. I can see two or three houses across the street that are similar in style to the one I just came out of. They all are small one story homes with faded siding and overgrown yards built sometime after or during World War Two for all the returning soldiers in this area. Stanton leads me down the driveway. We walk past a dark BMW, it looks like the one I saw the first time I ran into these guys. We keep walking until we get to what must be Stanton's unmarked cruiser because he slows down and walks me towards the front passenger door and helps me inside. I close the door and watch him walk around the front of the car. He sits down and closes the door next to me. He pushes a few buttons that deactivate the flashing lights.

  “I'm glad you’re okay Mr. Smith, you had a lot of people concerned, especially your wife and son." I nod my head and scoot back against the large seat. "I'm not sure if you know this or not, but right before you disappeared we issued an arrest warrant for you." I quickly turn my head in his direction. "We thought you had gotten word of the arrest warrant and left the area, but I see that isn’t really what happened." I nod.

  "How did you guys find me here?"

  "Jim Lawson, your co-worker called me a few hours ago and said he found this address on an email he got a hold of. I didn’t ask how he got it, but I figured I better go check it out and I'm glad I did."

  "Me too," He smiles.

  "There are a few things I found out this morning that you should probably know about." I look at him curiously. "For one, Sorenson was involved in this whole thing from the beginning."

  "What?"

  "Yep, apparently he and the Harris boys planned to kill off Mrs. Clausen and keep all her money, but then Frank Harris found out about Sorenson having some authority over the money and had a falling out and that's when they kidnapped Tommy and I think you know the rest." I look at him and watch as he nods his head. "Yes, Sorenson was crooked. He took part in some of the recent killings as well. We think he may have even pulled the trigger on one of those boys that I had you identify." I swallow a big mouthful of air.

  "Sorenson?"

  "Yep, and apparently your son was chosen as the target because there was a third brother named Mark Harris." He looks towards me. "Does that name mean anything to you?" I think about it for a minute and shake my head no. "He used to work for you at least temporarily."

  "That Mark Harris?"

  "Yep, he's the one. I think you had him fired."

  "Yes, he was rude and we suspected him of stealing things from the office."

  "Well he ended up committing suicide and his brothers blamed you and your company for that. I heard about the virus." I nod. "There's one other thing." I suddenly feel sweat begin rolling down my forehead and my hands begin to fidget. "I think you know what I'm talking about." I nod. "Well for some reason I deleted it by accident and now it's gone." He winks, then puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out a phone. "This is Frank's phone. I found it on him. It had a copy of the video. I figured I would give it to you so you can destroy it or whatever you want." I nod my head. "I also have his computer sealed up to be given directly to me. I can assure you the hard drive will accidently be broken or missing. Just so you know, I would have done the same thing if I had been in your place." He places his hand on my shoulder. "No point ruining any more lives."

  "Thank you…thank you so much for everything." He smiles.

  "Just tell me one thing." I
look at him. "How was he communicating with you?"

  "My iPhone."

  "That's what I figured." He shakes my hand. "I would offer to give you a ride home, but I figured you might prefer to go home with those two." He points towards the window besides me. I see Michelle and Tommy pulling up next to us. They are both waving frantically.

  "Thanks again." He nods and points at the door. I quickly open the door handle and push it open.

  "Actually Mr. Smith there is one more thing." He reaches in is coat pocket again and pulls out a crisp white envelope. "This is for you. We found it on Mrs. Clausen downstairs." I grab the envelope in my hand. It is unsealed. I quickly open it up and read it. It is a signed note with codes on the bottom giving me the legal right to all the money, all one hundred million dollars. "It's legal. It's all yours. Don't worry you deserve it." I don’t say anything. I slowly get out of the car and run towards Michelle and Tommy's open arms.

  Epilogue

  It's been six months since Detective Stanton saved my life. It seems like a lifetime ago now. Tommy is doing great and has seamlessly moved past all that happened to him. We have him see a counselor once a week, but she assures us he is fine and will probably no longer need her services very shortly. He is back playing baseball and I am one of the coaches. It feels odd going back to Lee Field. Michelle happily comes and cheers us on during every game. We have actually won two in a row thanks to Tommy's clutch hitting. I am no longer working as an IT manager. I am now President of Mary Clausen Charities in Old Town Alexandria and I love it. I spend my days seeking children that need help and then we reach out and provide for them whatever we can. We have actually set up Mary's big Mclean house as a temporary place to keep children that we have determined can no longer live in their own homes. We have a whole staff and even Buster is a member. Turns out he loves children. It has been very rewarding and challenging to try and live up to Mary's name, but with the help of her staff and our many volunteers we seem to be holding our own and hopefully we won’t let her down. I still haven’t gotten used to having a hundred million dollars in the bank. I don’t think we have actually spent any of the money. We did purchase a new roof for our house and took a small vacation to the North Carolina shore last month, but other than that nothing has changed. I made three anonymous donations to the families of the two boys that were killed by Frank and also to Sorenson's wife and daughter. I promised myself I would look out for them as long as I live. Michelle certainly agrees. I also sent a few donations to the police department. Jim is still working at the company and was actually promoted to my old job. I am very thankful to him for providing the information that saved my life. And even Detective Stanton stops by Lee Field every once in a while to see how Tommy is doing. He has cut back his hours some to spend more time with his family. He has never looked better. I’m thinking he is probably due for a nice vacation soon.