27. Vaughn
TWENTY-SEVEN
VAUGHN
The waiting room at Millfield General has twelve chairs, a water dispenser, a television with the sound turned down mounted high on the wall, and a window that looks out onto a parking lot.
I know all this because I’ve been here for over an hour and I’ve counted everything.
I can’t sit, so I pace the length of the room and back. I stare at the door that leads to the surgical wing every time I turn, as if staring at it often enough and hard enough will make it open sooner.
It doesn’t open.
I stop pacing in the middle of the room. The television is showing something with people talking and laughing. I sit in the nearest chair and put my face in my hands.
My son is god-knows-how-many feet away, fighting for his life.
If the surgeon doesn’t come out, it means he’s still alive after he almost lost it in the ambulance.
This is my fault. I’ve been receiving lowkey threats for two years and got so good at ignoring them that when the real threat came in, I didn’t take it seriously.
My son is fighting for his life on a surgical table because I didn’t call Dale sooner.
Because of me.
I press my hands harder against my face. I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose him.
Rowan is my life. He has been my life since the day he was born and even more so since the day his mother walked out on us.
Although my parents were around, he was my teammate.
The impetus that got me going in the morning even when I’d been kept up most of the night because he was my responsibility, not my mother’s.
And I loved it. Those nights when he was colicky and fussy, I held him in my arms and talked to him. Told him about my dreams, about going to college and taking him with me. And eventually he’d settle and fall asleep. So I often kept on holding him.
If I lose him—
My phone keeps dinging with messages. Our friends want news, but until I know for sure, I can’t handle speaking to anyone.
The sound of footsteps in the corridor pulls my attention, and I look up immediately, expecting to see a doctor, but instead it’s Silas.
I get on my feet and cross the room to meet him.
He catches me, and his solid embrace is everything I need right now.
“I’ve got you,” he says quietly. “I’ve got you.”
I breathe.
After a moment, I pull back.
“How is he?” Silas asks, his hands on my face, his thumbs caressing.
“He’s in surgery. They”—my voice breaks, so I clear my throat—“they had to resuscitate him in the ambulance. His heart—” Tears run down my face, and I take deep breaths. I don’t know what to do.
“That’s all they’ve told me. He’s been in surgery for an hour, and no one has come out.”
“He’s going to be okay,” Silas says.
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” he says. “I don’t. But he’s a fighter, and he has a lot to fight for.”
I want to believe him. I want to hold onto his logic, but underneath it is the other thing I can’t stop thinking.
“This is my fault,” I say.
“Vaughn—”
“It is,” I say. “I’ve been receiving threats for two years. I knew the last one was different, but … I should have told Rowan. I should have told him what was happening. I told Sheriff Briggs, but Rowan is FBI. He could have—”
“This is not your fault,” Silas says, his insistent gaze holding mine.
“That bullet was for me. I’m the one who should be in there.”
“How would that be any better? Rowan would be here doing exactly the same thing you’re doing.”
“If I lose him,” I say, and my voice breaks, “my life is over. I don’t know how to be in a world where Rowan isn’t in it. I don’t know how to do that.”
Silas pulls me back in.
He holds me tight, and I let him. I press my face against his shoulder and breathe through the anxiety and grief.
When I pull back, I touch his arm, and he flinches.
“You’re hurt.”
“It’s just a graze.”
I try to see the wound through his shirt, but of course I can’t. “A graze from what?”
“From a bullet. I chased the shooter.”
I stare at him.
“That’s why I left,” he says. “I saw the direction the shot came from, and I went after him.”
I’m stunned. “You chased the shooter?”
“Yes.”
“You ran after an armed man, who had just shot my son, and you— Silas, what were you thinking? You could have been killed. You could have—” The thought of Silas being caught in this …
“I’m fine,” he says.
“You were shot.”
“Grazed,” he insists.
“Why would you do that?”
He shakes his head and looks away.
“Vaughn …”
“What?”
He takes a breath. “Remember when I said earlier that I had something to tell you?”
I nod. “I wondered if it had anything to do with your job. I was hoping … you were going to say you were staying in Pine Ridge.”
He smiles ruefully, his hands still on my face. His brown eyes, so dark they’re almost black, are on mine, and something tells me I have this all wrong.
“I want to stay in Pine Ridge. More than anything. If I can find a way, I will. But … ”
“But what?”
“But once I tell you what I have to tell you, you might not want me here.”
The waiting room is very quiet. “Okay?”
“I want to ask you something first,” he says. “Do you think HelixGen is behind this?”
Why would he ask that? As far as he’s concerned, this should be a random shooting. Why does he think it’s not?
“Why are you asking about HelixGen?”
“Before I tell you, I need to know what you know. About the threat. All of it. Everything you’ve found out.”
“I received a package at the lab,” I say. “About three weeks ago. It started the same way the others had: acquisition offers, legal threats, the usual corporate pressure to sell or share the research. I’ve been getting versions of that for two years, but this one had photographs.”
Silas doesn’t move a muscle.
“Someone followed me in Warsaw,” I say. “During the conference. There were photographs. One from the lecture, taken from the back of the conference hall. One from the restaurant at the hotel with Seth and me at the table before you got there.”
Silas drops his hands from my face, takes a few steps back, and paces the room.
“That’s when I went to Atlas,” I continue. “His friend Jordan is … well, he has ways of finding information, so I asked Atlas to ask Jordan to look into it. Jordan found something.”
“Tell me what he found.”
“The legal threats came from a firm called Hargrove and Associates,” I say.
“Jordan traced them through a chain of shell companies. Hargrove is retained by a company called Meridian Legal Solutions. Meridian is owned by Apex Agricultural Holdings. Apex is a subsidiary of Vertex Holdings.” I shrug.
“Nothing to do with HelixGen. A completely separate corporation with agricultural land acquisition interests across twelve states.”
Silas closes his eyes briefly.
“Jordan documented the whole chain. That’s when I went to Dale Briggs, the sheriff. I showed him the package and Jordan’s documentation. He said he’d make some inquiries. Increase patrols. He couldn’t act formally without a named individual, but he took it seriously.”
Silas’s nod is slow, thoughtful.
“And then,” I say, “on the first day of the festival, do you remember when I went to get a glass of water from the kitchen?”
He nods.
“There was a photograph by the back door. This time it was one of us at that small restaurant in Warsaw on the same night. On the back it said, ‘You have been warned repeatedly. This is the last warning.’”
“Fuck,” he says, running his hands through his hair. “We were looking in the wrong place all this time.”
“What do you mean?”
His expression is pained. “I saw someone at the festival days ago. He seemed suspicious, but I dismissed it because he was with a woman and two kids. I thought he was a tourist. I increased vigilance at the house and then found tire tracks that were different from the cars I’ve seen on your land.”
“You knew there was a threat?” I’m dizzy with a rush of thoughts. How did he know? How does Silas know? This friend of my son’s and the love of my life—who is he?
He takes a breath. “Vaughn,” he says. “I need to tell you something, and I need you to hear all of it before you respond. Can you do that?”
Why do I have the feeling my heart, the tiny part that isn’t on the other side of the surgery doors with my son, is about to get broken?
“Okay.”
He holds my gaze. “The reason I know there’s a threat is because I’m the threat.”
I laugh. “What the fuck are you talking about? Don’t even joke about this. Rowan is on the other side of those doors, fighting for his life.”
“I’m not joking.”
“Then tell me why you are the threat.”
“Because I was hired to kill you.”