Chapter 8 - The Grave Was Meant for Two
At nine forty-five that morning, Natalie Brooks became a fugitive.
The first television report appeared on the clinic’s old waiting-room screen.
MISSING CHILD ALERT.
Liam’s school photograph filled the frame.
Natalie’s photograph appeared beside it.
Then Roman’s.
The reporter spoke urgently.
“Authorities are searching for seven-year-old Liam Brooks, believed to be traveling with his mother, Natalie Brooks, and suspected organized-crime figure Roman Bellandi.”
Natalie stared.
Suspected organized-crime figure was generous.
The report continued.
“According to the child’s father, Derek Brooks, Natalie may be experiencing a mental health crisis.”
Natalie laughed.
A broken sound.
“There it is.”
Anthony muted the television.
“Elias moves fast.”
“He’s had sixteen months to prepare.”
The reporter’s screen showed Derek standing outside a police station.
He looked devastated.
He was an excellent actor.
“My son needs his mother to get help,” Derek told cameras. “I just want Liam home safely.”
Natalie wanted to throw something through the television.
Instead she turned it off.
Roman walked slowly into the room.
Mara followed.
“You should be lying down,” Natalie said.
“I’ve been lying down long enough.”
“You had surgery two hours ago.”
“Minor surgery.”
Mara looked offended.
“I can make it major.”
Roman stopped arguing.
Anthony spread documents across a table.
“We can’t win this through our people.”
Roman nodded.
“Which means we use theirs.”
Natalie frowned.
“Whose?”
“The government.”
She stared.
“You want to call federal agents?”
“I want to give them Elias.”
“With evidence?”
Roman tapped the ledgers.
“And current financial records Anthony copied.”
Natalie looked at him.
“What happens to you?”
“That depends on how much they want Elias.”
“No.”
Roman frowned.
“No what?”
“You are not turning this into some deal where one criminal replaces another.”
Anthony made a face.
Roman said, “That’s generally how leverage works.”
Natalie stepped closer.
“Two people died at my hospital because of counterfeit medication moved through your organization.”
Roman’s face tightened.
“I know.”
“If you go to the government, you tell them everything.”
Anthony stared at her as though she had suggested Roman volunteer for execution.
Roman remained quiet.
“Everything?” he asked.
“Everything you expect anyone else to answer for.”
A long silence.
Roman looked toward Liam.
Then back to Natalie.
“All right.”
Anthony nearly choked.
“What?”
Roman ignored him.
“I’ll cooperate.”
“Roman—”
“I said I’ll cooperate.”
Anthony stared at his brother.
Natalie understood what the decision meant.
Maybe prison.
Maybe the end of Roman’s power.
Possibly death if his own people turned against him.
“Why?”
Roman looked at her.
“Because somebody should have made my father do it twelve years ago.”
Before Natalie could respond, the clinic door alarm beeped.
Everyone froze.
Anthony checked a security monitor.
A woman stood outside.
Mid-fifties.
Winter coat.
Hands visible.
Mara recognized her.
“That’s Helen Price.”
“Who?”
“Hospital pharmacist.”
Natalie’s hospital pharmacist.
Natalie stared.
“How did she find us?”
Mara looked confused.
“I contacted her for blood supplies.”
Natalie spun toward Mara.
“You called someone from my hospital?”
“I used an encrypted message.”
Roman was already moving.
“Encryption doesn’t protect the recipient.”
Anthony checked the cameras.
No vehicles visible.
Helen knocked.
“I know you’re in there!”
Natalie approached carefully.
“What do you want?”
Helen’s voice shook.
“To help.”
Natalie opened the door only after Goliath inspected her.
Helen entered carrying a cooler.
Then she burst into tears.
“I’m sorry.”
Natalie stared.
“For what?”
“The medication.”
The room became silent.
Helen sat down.
“I discovered discrepancies six months ago. Inventory codes that duplicated legitimate shipments. I reported them to hospital administration.”
“What happened?”
“They told me it was clerical.”
“And you believed them?”
“No.”
She looked at Natalie.
“I started keeping records.”
Roman stepped closer.
“Northstar?”
Helen nodded.
“Everything traced to Northstar.”
Anthony exhaled.
A live witness.
Current evidence.
Helen opened her bag.
Invoices.
Photographs.
Sample packaging.
Internal emails.
“This is enough for federal investigators,” she said.
Roman looked at Natalie.
“Now we have a case.”
Then Helen added, “There’s more.”
Of course.
She pulled out one final document.
A patient list.
Natalie recognized names.
Overdose cases.
Adverse reactions.
Deaths.
One name stopped her.
Liam Brooks.
She grabbed the page.
“What is this?”
Helen looked confused.
“Your son received medication from a Northstar lot.”
Natalie’s body went cold.
“No.”
Liam’s surgery.
Two years earlier.
He had developed unexplained respiratory collapse after surgery.
Doctors initially blamed an anesthetic reaction.
He spent six days in intensive care.
The bills had destroyed Natalie financially.
“What medication?”
“Postoperative pain control.”
Roman watched her.
Natalie whispered, “Could it have caused his respiratory arrest?”
Helen swallowed.
“Yes.”
The room disappeared.
All this time Natalie had thought bad luck destroyed their finances.
A medical complication.
Insurance denials.
Lost work.
Debt.
The move.
Everything started with Liam nearly dying.
And now she learned that the same criminal network had possibly caused it.
Roman looked sick.
Natalie turned on him.
“Your people almost killed my son.”
Roman did not defend himself.
“No.”
Her palm struck his face.
Anthony moved.
Roman stopped him.
Natalie hit Roman again.
Tears came.
“You don’t get to stand there and say no!”
Roman’s voice remained quiet.
“You’re right.”
“You ran them!”
“I ran an organization that allowed Elias to hide inside it.”
“You should have known!”
“Yes.”
“I spent every night in that ICU thinking my son might die!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
She shoved him.
Roman stumbled because of his injury.
Still, he didn’t resist.
Goliath stood alert but did not interfere.
Natalie covered her mouth.
The anger broke into sobs.
She hated crying in front of people.
She hated the weakness of it.
Then Liam walked into the room.
“Mom?”
Natalie turned away.
He approached.
“What happened?”
She wiped her face.
“Nothing.”
Liam gave her the same look she had given him a hundred times.
No more lies.
Natalie knelt.
“We found out why you got so sick after your surgery.”
His eyes widened.
“Why?”
“Bad medicine.”
“From him?”
He pointed toward Roman.
Roman answered before Natalie could.
“From people who worked under me.”
Liam stared.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
“But you were the boss.”
Roman went still.
“Yes.”
Liam thought about that.
Then said something nobody expected.
“Then you have to fix it.”
Roman looked at the boy for a long time.
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“I do.”
At eleven fifteen, Anthony arranged contact with a federal prosecutor through Mara’s attorney.
A meeting was set for an abandoned state police training facility twenty miles away.
Neutral location.
Federal agents only.
No local law enforcement.
Roman would surrender evidence.
Natalie would present Helen’s records.
They would expose Elias.
At eleven forty, they left.
Two vehicles.
Anthony drove Roman and Helen.
Natalie drove Liam, Mara, and Goliath.
The roads were finally clear.
For the first time in hours, Natalie thought maybe they would make it.
Then a pickup truck swerved from a side road.
It slammed into Anthony’s vehicle.
Metal screamed.
Natalie hit the brakes.
Another SUV crashed into her rear quarter.
Airbags exploded.
Liam screamed.
Goliath barked.
Natalie’s ears rang.
Mara was unconscious beside her.
Men surrounded the car.
The passenger window shattered.
Hands dragged Natalie out.
She fought.
Someone struck her.
The world flashed white.
The last thing she saw before losing consciousness was Goliath breaking through the rear window.
Running.
Not toward the attackers.
Into the forest.
With Liam clinging to his collar.
Natalie smiled through the blood in her mouth.
Good boy.
Then darkness took her.
She woke tied to a chair.
An old mine tunnel stretched around her.
Derek stood ten feet away.
Elias Ward stood beside him.
Roman was tied to another chair across the chamber.
His face was bleeding.
Anthony lay unconscious against the wall.
Natalie looked around wildly.
“Liam?”
Elias smiled.
“Missing.”
Relief nearly made her cry.
Goliath had gotten him out.
Elias crouched in front of Natalie.
“You are remarkably inconvenient.”
“People tell me that.”
He smiled.
“I see why Roman likes you.”
Derek shifted uncomfortably.
Natalie looked at him.
“You almost killed Liam two years ago.”
Derek frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
“Northstar medication.”
Recognition flashed across his face.
Small.
But visible.
Natalie saw it.
“You knew.”
Derek looked away.
“You knew?”
“I didn’t know what would happen.”
Natalie stopped breathing.
Roman’s chair creaked as he struggled.
Elias smiled.
“Derek was useful long before the divorce.”
Natalie stared at her ex-husband.
Derek’s face collapsed.
“They told me it was normal medication.”
“You switched his hospital supply?”
“No! I delivered a box. That’s all.”
“Our son was in intensive care!”
“I needed the money!”
Natalie could not understand the man in front of her.
Then Elias spoke.
“And when Thomas Reed’s daughter became financially desperate afterward, everything became easier.”
The truth hit.
The medical debt had not accidentally pushed Natalie into poverty.
It had been useful.
Elias had created vulnerability.
Then paid Derek to exploit it.
The custody case.
The move.
The isolated cabin.
All pieces.
Natalie whispered, “You wanted me here.”
Elias smiled.
“Eventually.”
“Why?”
“Because your father’s cabin was nearby.”
“You knew?”
“I knew Thomas had another property somewhere in Carbon County. I didn’t know where.”
“So you used Derek to move me here.”
“He convinced you rural living would be cheaper.”
Natalie remembered.
Derek had been the first person to send her the rental listing.
He claimed he saw it online.
She had forgotten.
Elias leaned closer.
“You were never random, Natalie.”
Cold spread through her.
“You buried Roman near my house because you wanted Goliath to find him?”
“No.”
For the first time, Elias laughed genuinely.
“That dog ruined everything.”
His eyes hardened.
“Roman’s grave was meant to stay closed.”
He looked at Derek.
“And once Roman disappeared, Natalie was supposed to disappear too.”
Derek turned sharply.
“What?”
Natalie froze.
Elias smiled.
“Did you really think we were paying you a million dollars and leaving witnesses?”
Derek’s face drained white.
“You said she’d be framed.”
“She would.”
“For murder.”
“Yes.”
“But alive.”
Elias almost looked pitying.
“Oh, Derek.”
Derek stepped backward.
“You said Liam would come to me.”
“He would have.”
“For how long?” Natalie whispered.
Elias said nothing.
That silence answered everything.
Derek finally understood.
He had sold his family to men who never intended to let any of them survive.
And somewhere outside the mine, a hundred-and-sixty-pound mastiff was running through the mountains with the only witness Elias had failed to capture.
Natalie looked at Roman.
Roman met her eyes.
Neither spoke.
They both understood the same thing.
May you like
Goliath was no longer merely protecting Liam.
He was their only chance of being found.
