Chapter 1 #2
My keys jingle as I unlock the door and step inside. I flip the deadbolt and drop my keys on the table next to the entryway before sliding my shoes off and making my way through the living room toward the basement.
“Hey dad,” I call out as I open the door and start down the bare wooden steps.
“Hey Fi. How was the town hall?”
“Exactly how you’d expect,” I say when I reach the bottom. My dad is seated at his workbench, headlamp on his head, fiddling with a soldering iron.
“They greenlit the whole project, then?”
“Yup. Jacob was very pleased with himself, and Tre got thrown out on his ass again. So, par for the course.”
My dad makes a small sound that might be a repressed laugh.
“What?” I ask.
“Just imagining Rich’s reaction to hearing Tre was booted from another town hall.”
I shrug, not really caring about Tre or his dad. “Ewan says hi, by the way. And he’ll be here for dinner on Friday.”
“Alright.”
“So? Did you think about it?” I ask, shifting my weight.
“Did I think about what?” My dad turns off the soldering iron and sets it down.
I sigh. “Building me a bomb.”
“Didn’t figure you were serious.” He shuts off the headlamp too, then rotates to face me.
“Bullshit.”
He holds my gaze, his blue eyes boring into mine, as he says, “You’re a doctor, Fi. You have your whole life ahead of you.”
“Yeah. And this is what I want to do with it, dad. If you don’t help me, I’ll do it myself and probably lose a few fingers or an arm in the process,” I threaten.
I’m sure I can figure out the basics of bomb-making.
But I’m a whole lot less sure I can figure out how to make a shaped charge, which is what I want.
Though if the bomb is big enough, chances are I don’t need to figure it out.
It’s not like McVeigh’s bomb-making skills were all that sophisticated.
Just a truck full of fertilizer, and I don’t want to take down a building.
Only a support column. Still, I’d prefer finesse to brute force if it’s an option.
“You didn’t spend years going through medical school to start blowing things up, Fiona.”
“Yeah, well. Plans change.”
“Fine.” He pulls off the headlamp, setting it on the table next to the soldering iron before folding his arms across his chest and leaning back.
“Convince me. You want me to build you a bomb? Convince me that I should. And not just because you’ll lose a few fingers if I don’t, because if you want to fuck around and find out, that’s on you.
Convince me that building you a bomb is the right thing to do.
Convince me that you can get away with it.
Convince me that I’m not helping you throw your life away. ”
This is familiar ground, and though I want to tell him that it’s my life to throw away, I know that won’t get me anywhere.
My dad has enough regrets about having thrown his own life away.
After my mom died the winter Ewan and I turned sixteen, my dad checked out for a while.
Ewan and I were lucky that we had each other.
And we were old enough—and had been raised to be independent enough—that we managed alright during the two years following my mom’s death that my dad spent at the bottom of a bottle.
But he lost his job, nearly lost the house, and definitely lost his self-respect by the time he climbed out of it.
“Fine,” I agree. “You know why I left the hospital and bought out Dr. Restin?”
“No. You told me some nonsense about missing home, but we both know that was a lie.”
I don’t deny it because he’s right. It was a lie.
“About four months before I quit, a woman came into the emergency department. No one knew it when she came in, but she had a brain aneurysm that had ruptured. I was the hospitalist assigned to her case when she was transferred to the ICU, but by then, she was already on a ventilator. It was too late for us to do anything.”
I take a breath, remembering her husband’s sobs when life support was disconnected two days later, and push the memory away.
“It happens. Anyway, this time it shouldn’t have happened.
She’d been complaining about headaches and numbness, and her primary care physician referred her for an MRI, but her insurance company wouldn’t pre-authorize the claim.
Some shit about her symptoms not being severe enough, or whatever.
And because the insurance company wouldn’t pre-authorize the claim, the hospital wouldn’t do the MRI without her and her husband agreeing to pay the full amount out of pocket, which they couldn’t afford.
So the aneurysm ruptured, and she came to the hospital and died before we could help her. All because she couldn’t get an MRI.
“And when the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was murdered, and my only thought was ‘good,’ I decided I needed to get out. I was already considering coming back here and heard Restin was looking to retire, so I bought him out, figuring at least this way I could treat people regardless of whether or not some corporation thinks they need it.”
“Okay, and what does that have to do with blowing up Henley and Montank’s aerial gondolas?”
“It’s all the same thing, dad! They’re just another corporation who thinks they can come in and fling enough money around to flout the rules!
So what if it’s critically endangered habitat if they have enough cash?
Who cares if they fuck up the ecosystem and the water supply if they can afford the lawyers to say they didn’t?
Who cares if the community doesn’t want it, as long as the council members are getting whatever kickbacks they demand? ”
My dad snorts, the lines around his eyes tightening. “You sound like Tre.”
“Tre’s a dumbass.”
“If you set off a bomb on Henley and Montank’s site, this won’t stay local. That’ll automatically bring in the ATF, Fiona,” he says in a way that implies I might also be a dumbass.
“I can get away with it. Everyone thinks I’m pro-development because I’ve made sure of it!
What do you think I’ve been doing for the past five months?
I’m a mild-mannered lady-doctor who doesn’t know how to build bombs, dad.
I’m the least likely suspect in the entire town.
You build me a bomb, and then you go make yourself seen while I detonate it.
You can’t have done it, and no one—including the ATF—would ever believe I did. ”
He sighs and runs a hand through his silver hair before spinning on his seat and picking up the soldering iron. “I’ll think about it.”
It’s the same thing he said last time, but this time there’s a hint of resignation and maybe acceptance that makes me believe he’ll actually think about it.