Chapter 76 - The Shattered Golden Boy
The crew pulled us onto the diamond-plate deck of the Black Hawk and slammed the cargo door shut against the howling storm.
Jason collapsed onto the floorboards, coughing up gallons of salty seawater, his body vibrating with violent, uncontrollable tremors of hypothermia. The crew wrapped him in thick thermal foil blankets, but he couldn't stop shaking. He curled into a fetal position against my soaked boots, clutching the wet denim of my jeans like a child clinging to his father in the dark.
"Brian..." he wheezed, his voice cracked and hollow, stripped of every trace of the smug condescension he had carried for three decades. "She... she was going to let me drown. She looked me in the eyes... and she locked the hatch."
I stood above him, my chest heaving, the blood from my glass-cut hands dripping slowly onto the silver foil wrapping his shoulders.
"You sat at Thanksgiving and told our mother I was worthless," I said, my voice dead and cold over the thrum of the helicopter blades. "You told the whole family I was a failure who couldn't keep a job, a home, or a woman. You laughed while Amanda poured champagne over my coat."
Jason broke. A violent, choking sob tore out of his chest. He buried his face in his hands, pressing his forehead directly against the toes of my boots on the helicopter floor.
"I’m sorry... God, Brian, I’m so sorry..." he wept, the tears washing streaks through the salt crusted on his cheeks. "Julian promised me everything! He told me Marcus had left you a shadow trust to humiliate me! Amanda said if we stripped you of the farm, if we broke you at the table, Julian would make me CEO of the entire shipping conglomerate! It was all a lie! She used me to sign the blind transfer keys!"
Harris stepped forward, shining a small penlight into Jason's dilated pupils. "Save the tears for the grand jury, Jason. Where is she going?"
Jason shook his head wildly, teeth chattering so hard they sounded like dice in a cup. "She has a private hangar... at Sanford Seacoast Regional in Maine. She has a Gulfstream fueled and waiting on a false flight plan to Grand Cayman. But she’s not going alone."
I grabbed Jason by the lapels of his foil blanket, hauling him up until his terrified eyes were inches from mine. "What do you mean she's not going alone?"
"Marcus's personal vaults... in the old foundation house at Blackwood Sound," Jason stammered, his eyes darting toward the darkened window. "She didn't just want the money, Brian. There’s a vault under the foundation floor. Marcus kept physical bearer bonds, the original handwritten ledgers from 1984, and... and the medical records."
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"What medical records?" I demanded.
Jason swallowed hard, his voice dropping to a terrified whisper. "The records proving who your real mother was. Julian wasn't just Marcus's business rival. Julian was the man who had your mother murdered thirty years ago... and Amanda has the proof to blackmail every politician in New England who covered it up."
