Chapter 8 - The Last Man Standing
Gabriel moved Daniel immediately to a secure military medical residence.
Elena and Mateo came too.
Gabriel didn't ask Elena.
Daniel did.
That settled it.
Voss's message suggested one final target.
Gabriel assumed Anthony.
He was wrong.
The target was Margaret.
Voss believed she possessed Isabel's original financial ledger.
She did.
Federal agents arranged controlled protection.
Voss contacted her.
He demanded the ledger in exchange for disappearing forever.
Margaret agreed under FBI supervision.
The meeting location was an abandoned medical research facility in New Jersey.
Gabriel wasn't supposed to participate.
He accepted that.
This wasn't war.
It was law enforcement.
He remained at the command post.
That was harder than any firefight.
Voss arrived.
Agents moved.
He tried escaping through a service tunnel.
He failed.
General Richard Voss was arrested at 11:43 p.m.
Alive.
No glorious death.
No convenient silence.
Alive meant testimony.
Alive meant trial.
Alive meant names.
Guardian collapsed.
But one question remained.
Who had directly killed Isabel?
Mercer denied administering the fatal medication.
Voss claimed he had only authorized "containment."
Then investigators recovered an old security recording.
Delivery ward.
Six years earlier.
A nurse entered Isabel's room carrying medication.
Gabriel watched the footage.
He recognized her.
Margaret, Daniel's nanny.
Not Gabriel's sister Margaret.
Margaret Shaw.
The woman who had called him the night Daniel collapsed.
The woman who had helped raise his son.
Gabriel felt physically ill.
She had vanished after the hospital attack because she knew Guardian was coming apart.
Authorities searched everywhere.
Then Elena remembered something.
The first night, before the attack, she'd seen an older woman in a staff-only corridor.
She had assumed she was visiting someone.
Elena described her.
Margaret Shaw.
Hospital surveillance showed Margaret leaving through a laundry exit.
Her vehicle was traced north.
Toward the farmhouse.
Anthony's farmhouse.
Gabriel called his father.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
He contacted the agents guarding Anthony.
No response.
Gabriel's pulse spiked.
He drove there with federal officers.
The front door stood open.
Inside, photographs had been torn from the walls.
Anthony was gone.
A chair lay overturned.
Gabriel found blood on the floor.
Then a voice came from the basement.
"Gabriel."
He raised his weapon.
Margaret Shaw emerged.
Older.
Tired.
Holding no gun.
Behind her stood Anthony.
Alive.
His hands were bound.
"Don't," Anthony warned.
Gabriel stared at Margaret.
"You killed Isabel."
Margaret's face crumpled.
"I loved Daniel."
"Answer me."
"I didn't know the medication would kill her."
"Lie."
"They told me it would sedate her."
Gabriel stepped closer.
"You stayed in my house for six years."
Tears filled her eyes.
"I tried to make up for it."
"You cannot raise the child of the woman you helped murder and call that forgiveness."
Margaret lowered her head.
Federal agents entered.
She didn't resist.
Before they took her away, she looked at Gabriel.
"Isabel knew."
"What?"
"She knew what I'd done before she died."
Gabriel froze.
Margaret continued.
"And she forgave me."
Gabriel shook his head.
"You don't get to use her forgiveness to escape mine."
Margaret was arrested.
Anthony was freed.
The farmhouse became evidence.
Gabriel believed the nightmare was finally over.
Then investigators found something hidden beneath the basement floor.
A sealed metal case.
Inside was Isabel's original Guardian ledger.
And one final letter.
Gabriel opened it.
The first line read:
Gabriel, if our son survived, there is one truth about Daniel I never had the courage to tell you.
Gabriel stopped reading.
Elena stood beside him.
"What does it say?"
May you like
Gabriel looked at the next line.
His hands began to shake.
