Chapter 17 - The Boardroom Ambush
"You made a mistake, Arthur," I said.
He paused, a mocking smirk forming on his thin lips. "A mistake? You’re cornered in a wooden shop five miles from the nearest sheriff’s cruiser."
"I am an auditor," I replied, not moving an inch. "I don't verify records after the fact. I verify them in real-time."
I reached into my pocket with my left hand and tapped the screen of my phone, which had been resting on the workbench with its microphone active for the past twenty minutes.
Through the Bluetooth speaker mounted on the workshop wall—Donald’s old workshop radio—Marilyn Freeman’s clear, sharp voice rang out:
"Arthur, this call has been patched directly to the county prosecutor’s duty line and the regional sheriff’s dispatch. Deputy Miller is already turning onto Lake Road with two units."
Arthur’s face drained of color. He lunged toward the workbench to grab my phone, but I didn't wait.
I swung the steel pry bar with all the weight of my torso, catching him across the forearm. The bone cracked with a sickening snap, and he screamed, stumbling backward into a rack of iron pipe clamps. The clamps cascaded down in a deafening metallic clatter.
Outside, the man with the fuel canister heard the crash and the sirens already wailing through the wet timber half a mile away. Through the window, I saw him drop the canister into the mud and sprint into the thick pine woods toward the county highway.
Arthur was on his knees, clutching his broken arm, breathing in ragged, choked gasps. His expensive coat was soaked in sawdust and old motor oil.
"He... he was my brother’s keeper," Arthur wept, tears cutting clean lines through the dirt on his cheeks. "He had no right to be so righteous..."
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"Donald wasn't righteous," I said, looking down at him with utter disgust. "He was honest. There’s a difference. Honest men leave records."
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