Chapter 71 - The Threshold of 1985
The clock on the dashboard of Campbell’s truck clicked over to 11:45 PM. It was fifteen minutes before New Year’s Day.
We pulled into the rear ambulance bay of Albany Medical Center under the shadow of heavy snowfall. The hospital was running on auxiliary power due to the storm, the emergency room packed with frostbite victims and accident casualties from the blizzard.
"I’ll stay with Lily," Campbell said softly, his hand resting on the steering wheel, his face pale from blood loss. "The feds haven't connected Eleanor to this hospital yet, but they will by morning. Make it quick, Emma."
I kissed Lily’s forehead. She stirred slightly, whispering in her sleep, safe under the heavy wool blanket.
I walked through the sterile, fluorescent-lit corridors of the ICU, the smell of antiseptic and ozone replacing the cold air of the foundry. Room 412 was guarded by a single local sheriff’s deputy, who stepped aside when I showed him my identification.
Eleanor lay in the center of the bed, connected to a labyrinth of monitors and IV lines. Her face was swollen, bandages wrapping her fractured ribs, her right eye swollen shut. She looked fragile, ancient, stripped of every ounce of Vance prestige and power.
As the door clicked shut, her remaining eye fluttered open.
"Emma..." she whispered, the oxygen mask fogging with each ragged breath.
I stood at the foot of the bed, my arms folded across my chest, neither approaching nor retreating. "The documents are ash, Eleanor. Arthur’s debt died tonight."
A weak, trembling smile touched the corner of her bruised mouth. "Good... good. Then the child is free."
"Why did you do it?" I asked, the question hanging heavy between us. "You had twenty-five years to protect me. You didn't. Why protect Lily?"
Eleanor struggled to lift her right hand, her fingers trembling as she pointed toward the small bedside table where a sealed, blood-smeared leather journal lay beside her wedding ring.
May you like
"Because... she isn't Arthur’s granddaughter," Eleanor rasped, a single tear slipping from her swollen eye down into the white linen pillow. "And the man who gave Claire that ledger in Zurich... is waiting outside this hospital right now to claim what was never mine."
The heart monitor suddenly began to chime an irregular, descending rhythm as the heavy fire door at the end of the hallway burst open.
