The Heir (38 page)

We were in hard kitchen chairs, not beside the cozy fire I’d imagined. But this was why I’d come. It wasn’t about Katie’s or Melvin’s deaths—it was about my life.

He took time to answer, and I was fading. But in his eyes there was such deep thought, and I stared back and kept myself awake.

“Life is precious,” he said. “Look at yourself, Jason. I don’t know what you went through to come here, but I can see in you that it has been terrible. If you don’t know why you want to keep living, you still know that you do.”

“But I have to know why!”

“Of course. Certainly. Everyone needs a purpose, something they can serve. You need a purpose outside of yourself. You’ve only had yourself as your life, and through these terrible struggles you’ve finally seen how unworthy that is, how without value. Now, and only now, you can start to look for something else.”

What was he saying? This was what I’d wanted my whole life, to hear this. The answers. From someone who knew. This was so important.

“Eric said I had the gun,” I said.

He was bewildered for a moment. “He . . . what?” He didn’t know what I was talking about.

“You called Fred, and he told you he still had the gun.” Suddenly, inside my head a vortex had opened, spinning, pulling in every thought. “But Eric said I had the gun in my hand when I left Fred’s office.”

He’d changed to the new subject, but he hadn’t caught up with me yet. “Well . . . he must have been mistaken. It must have been very confused at that moment.”

“Because that means I’d have brought it up to my office, where you were.” Now the whirlwind was throwing the thoughts back out, strange thoughts, in strange patterns. “That afternoon, before I met Clinton Grainger at the hotel. I told you I was meeting him.”

The intimate, confessional mood between us was far gone. “Jason . . . what are you saying?”

I didn’t know. The words were hardly mine. I was too tired to think. I could only watch the thoughts whirling by too fast to see what they really were.

“Was there something in Melvin’s notes about the foundation?” It couldn’t be true. Nathan was the only one who had withstood the corrosion of the money and the power. I had to believe it was possible for a man to do that; I had to believe he had answers. “Angela found something in them. Grainger had seen it, too, when he raided Melvin’s office. All that I’d left there were those files on the foundation, and Grainger got copies of them. That’s what he meant that night, his ‘surprise.’ He knew something about the foundation, and he was going to use it against me. And he met someone else afterward.”

“What are you talking about?” Now there was anger in his eyes. It was mirroring my own.

“You knew Melvin was going to change his will. If he’d had his accident a couple hours sooner . . .”

He forced calm back into his eyes and breathing. “Jason. Do you know what you’re saying?”

Could it be? How many times had I already been wrong? “I don’t know.”

“I was in Washington when Angela was killed.”

Of course. I slumped back in the chair. “I’m sorry, Nathan.” How could I have accused him?

“Come with me,” he said, very gently. “I’ll show you my notes. They’re in the study. That will be proof.”

I could picture them, neat lines filling sheets of white paper. As ordered and right as everything about him. He turned on the study light, and I stood by the wall of binders as he stopped at his desk.

“I’ll need my glasses.” He was looking through a drawer. “I’m sorry I was angry. You’re not yourself.”

I’d been so close to hearing his words. How could we get back? I glanced at the shelves, my back to him. I couldn’t work out how they were ordered. It must have been by subject because the dates weren’t in order. It suddenly bothered me, or something did. I turned abruptly to ask him.

The bullet hit my shoulder—it would have been my back if I hadn’t moved.

I dropped. It was reflex, or pain, or the force of the impact. My arm was on fire. I tried to scramble behind a chair, but then I saw his face, set in nervous determination, and the gun at arm’s length pointed right at my head.

His hand was only trembling a little.

I was frozen. Panic pressure in my head ripped my thoughts apart. My heart was exploding in my chest. The terror was like iron chains holding me. I heard myself telling Fred,
“If a man has a gun
and he’s trying to kill you . . .”

I stared at Nathan, beyond thought, and at the round black hole of the gun. I couldn’t move.

“You can either dodge bullets or . . .”

He looked away.

He’d been startled. The gun moved away. It wasn’t just blood pounding in my ears; there was some other sound. He looked back to me and straightened his aim, but the sound was louder.

Someone was knocking on the front door and ringing the bell.

I shoved the chair aside to get behind it. He fired again but was distracted. I felt the chair shudder. I was still pushing and clawing to get behind it.

There was a crash and Nathan turned and started toward the door to the hall, the gun still in his hand. At the doorway he stopped, his face white and confused. He pointed once more, wildly, and fired. The wall above my head splintered.

I was close to the door to his conservatory. I lunged toward it. It wasn’t latched and I fell through into the pots and branches.

Someone was shouting, and I heard Nathan saying, “In here! He’s in here!” I got myself upright and threw my side into the sunroom glass wall. It shattered and I fell through bushes and hit the ground.

There were roots, and once I was up I tripped on them and fell. It was too hard to stand again. I crawled through the stiff branches and out onto the grass.

“Out there!” Nathan’s voice followed me. “There he is!”

The yard was dark. I pulled myself upright and ran and limped toward the street. A light-colored car was at the curb, and I got around it and crouched by the driver’s door.

The front door of the house flew open. I could see two silhouettes in the light of the hall.

“He’s out there. I saw him.”

“Was it Boyer?” a deeper voice said.

“Yes, yes! It was! He’s somewhere here! You can find him! Catch him!”

I was gawking at the steering wheel inside the car. Keys were hanging down from behind it.

“I’ll call for backup,” the deep voice said.

I yanked the door open and was inside the car. I turned the key and hit the accelerator and pulled the door closed.

It took two minutes to breathe again, and think. The car was an unmarked police cruiser. I was on the main road back into town, the road I’d walked that morning. The fire in my jaw had spread to my shoulder.

As the panic subsided, the pain swelled. I was tired of it. I kept driving. I was tired of everything.

The road widened and I picked up speed. A highway ramp was ahead and I pulled onto it. From the highway I could see the skyline ahead like a line of teeth. I raced into them.

Traffic was light toward downtown, nothing to slow me. Straight in front was my goal, glowing forty-two stories high.

It probably took less than twenty minutes to reach my exit. I had no time for the red light at the bottom, and the horns and screeching tires amused me. Eight blocks, right turn, three blocks. There were no spaces at the front door so I left the car in the middle of the street.

There was a crowbar in the trunk. Perfect.

I strolled into the empty lobby and looked around—it had become pretty familiar the last few weeks. It would be a good place, this building.

The coffee shop was closed but the television was on, and I stopped a minute to watch through the gate.

“. . . again eluding police.” It was Bill Sandoff himself. It made me feel so much at home. “The intended victim was Nathan Kern, director of the Melvin Boyer Charitable Foundation, who had been under police surveillance as a possible target. We will continue to update the story as more information comes in. Again, Jason Boyer is still at large, driving a light tan Buick Riviera. He is armed and extremely dangerous.” They had a picture up, the same one they’d been using for a week. Everyone must be getting pretty tired of it. “If you believe you see him, call the police immediately. Do not approach him. Commissioner DeAngelo has asked that citizens—”

Good ole Miguel, he’d be squirming right now. I couldn’t imagine what the Harry Bright quote would be. It would almost be worth waiting one more day to find out.

There’d be the Nathan Kern story; that would be adorable.
“Kern
told reporters how he managed to use his gun in self-defense.”
Maybe he could rumple his suit a little.

No, I didn’t want to hear it. There’d be an even bigger story soon anyway.

I pushed the elevator button. The doors opened and I was face-to-face with a young lady in a blue suit and two-hundred-dollar hair. I grinned at her and she screamed.

She shoved past me and ran. I think she got blood on her suit. I was covered with it.

Top button. Up and up and up, farther and farther from the ground. Faster, up into the sky, away from all the problems and foolish lives, away from all the people wasting their energy living. They didn’t know how useless it all was. I knew better now.

Forty-second floor. Down the hall to the locked door. No fumbling with the key this time. Pamela’s desk was empty. She’d finally be free of us Boyers, lucky her.

The second door wouldn’t open. The lock had been changed? It was a ruin when I got through it. It hurt my shoulder, all of me, to ram the heavy bar into it again and again, but the pain would be over soon.

There was my view! Breathtaking, and that was going to be literally true very soon. All the lights—lights everywhere. Nathan Kern could have it all. Take it! I was the winner, more than he would ever know. It would all be his or Fred’s, the curse of it, and I was glad to let them all kill each other. Gaining that whole world was the worst punishment I could sentence anyone to.

I was seeing his face—the sincere, serious face he’d used to tell me that he’d asked Melvin to change the will. No man would have done that. I knew now, no one could turn down what that will was offering him. Let him have it. It would kill him, too.

Enough of that. How beautiful it was outside! There were blinking lights below, red and blue flashes against the street and buildings. It was a celebration, all for me! I couldn’t hear the sirens because the glass was too thick. Not for long!

I lifted the crowbar and swung. Circles spread out from the impact point like ripples as the glass fragmented. Two more swings sent the shards out into space and down into the heap of lights and sirens. The whole panel was gone except for bits around the edges.

There was irony in escaping Nathan’s gun just to come here— but that was panic, and this was truth. Finally I knew the truth! The questions were over! It was all over. I had reached the end and I’d found what was there. And it was nothing. Nathan had shown me the answers just as I was hoping he would.

I had a cool idea: if only I’d had Eric’s Corvette in the office. The hole in the glass was big enough to drive it through!

I wanted to see what something would look like falling. I took the big armchair Fred sat in and pushed it to the opening. The wind was blowing in and it reminded me of night air out on the boat. There was even a tinge of salt. I pushed the chair over the edge of the glass and watched it sailing down, riding the wind, disappearing. If only Fred had been in it.

There is sound now in the hall outside the office. They’re coming. Time to go.

I stand at the precipice and see what I’ve looked for, for so long, the real reason a man lives. It is just so that he can die, and there is nothing else. Dying is real life, and living in the kingdoms of earth is real death.

I lean out into the void and feel the gale wind taking me and below are the beautiful lights so far away.

I want it to last forever, but almost before it started, the impact and darkness come.

40

I didn’t feel anything—there was just sound.

Faint sound. Rustling, someone breathing. Some other quiet rhythmic
whirr
.

Footsteps on a hard floor, coming, passing, going.

It was my breathing. My eyes opened, and there was a white ceiling and bright lights. It hurt my eyes, and I closed them.

Something scraped on the floor.

“Tell them he’s awake. Get Wilcox.”

That meant something. I didn’t want to move. I opened my eyes again. It was a hospital room. There was lots of white, and a blue uniform with a policeman in it.

The
whirr
was a pump. A tube from it wandered to my bed and under the cover.

Heavy footsteps, and people came. More police uniforms and another man, a doctor in a white coat. He studied the machines. “Yes,” he said to one of the uniforms. “He seems to be conscious.” He looked at me. “Good morning.”

I didn’t talk. People came and went, and I didn’t talk to any of them. Time came and went, and I didn’t feel like doing anything.

Then I saw a face I knew.

“Mr. Boyer?” I could only stare at him. “Mr. Boyer?”

Something was on one side of my face, wires holding my jaw. I could hardly move my mouth.

“We need to talk with you.”

I closed my eyes and opened them, but he was still there.

“Mr. Boyer.” He glanced at the doctor beside him. “He’s hearing us, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“I need him to talk.”

“I can’t make him do that.”

Detective Wilcox came closer to me. “You’ve given us a real hard time.” He wasn’t talking nice. “They say you might not leave here for a week, and I don’t want to wait.”

“Go.” It was real hard to talk, and the words that came out were more like croaks. “Away.”

“Don’t you wish.” He looked away toward the window, thinking and angry. “Where have you been hiding?”

He was going away. Everything was. The sounds stayed longer, but then they stopped, too.

I was awake again. I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t want the people to come back. The sounds were still the same.

I felt rotten. There was pain this time. I thought it would have gone away. I remembered the dark and the wind and the lights down and far.