CHAPTER 9 BRENDAN’S FINAL CHOICE
We flew to Maine in an Ashcroft security helicopter.
Federal agents followed in a second aircraft.
The coastal house stood above a dark Atlantic cliff, its windows glowing through the winter storm. I had not visited since my mother’s death.
The building looked exactly as it did in my memories.
Gray cedar siding.
White shutters.
A glass sunroom facing the sea.
And beyond it, the narrow path leading to the private dock where my mother had taken her final boat trip.
Marcus insisted I remain in the helicopter.
I refused.
By the time we reached the front door, snow had begun blowing sideways.
The lock was broken.
Inside, furniture had been overturned. Muddy footprints crossed the entry hall.
“Brendan?” I called.
A groan came from the library.
We found him behind my mother’s desk, pressing one hand against a gunshot wound near his shoulder.
A dead man lay beside the fireplace.
I recognized him from the garage.
Not the masked shooter Marcus had killed, but the driver who had escaped during the chaos.
“He came for the evidence,” Brendan said.
Marcus kicked the dead man’s weapon away.
“Where is it?”
Brendan pointed toward the floor.
A wooden panel beneath the desk had been opened. Inside was a metal case sealed in plastic.
Arthur knelt beside it.
“How did you know?”
“My father told me.”
“Why?”
“He thought I was still helping him.”
Brendan looked at me.
“He told me to destroy everything before the Swiss police reached his office.”
“You escaped custody to obey him?”
“At first.”
The honesty hurt more than another lie would have.
He had not suddenly become good.
He had simply reached another decision along the way.
Arthur opened the case.
Inside were maintenance records, photographs of the damaged fuel system, and a small digital recorder.
The recorder contained a conversation between Charles and the mechanic hired to sabotage my mother’s boat.
The mechanic’s name was Adrian Cross.
The dead man near the fireplace.
“He killed her,” I whispered.
Brendan nodded.
“And Martin paid him through my father.”
Federal agents began documenting the evidence.
A medic treated Brendan’s shoulder.
I stood near the window, looking toward the ocean.
Brendan joined me despite the medic’s objections.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I kept my eyes on the waves.
“For which part?”
“All of it.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
He swallowed.
“I’m sorry I used your grief. I’m sorry I let my mother humiliate you. I’m sorry I brought Jessica into our home. I’m sorry I convinced myself stealing from you was justice.”
“And our daughter?”
His face broke.
“I never wanted her hurt.”
“You helped people who threatened maternity hospitals.”
“I didn’t know they would go that far.”
“You saw my mother’s recording.”
He looked down.
“I saw part of it.”
“You knew Charles was involved in her death.”
“I suspected.”
“And you stayed with him.”
“He was my father.”
“So you sacrificed your wife.”
“I thought I could control the plan.”
A sad laugh escaped me.
“You were never controlling anything.”
“I know.”
Behind us, Marcus received a radio update.
“Storm is worsening. We need to leave within ten minutes.”
A sharp pain moved across my lower back.
I gripped the windowsill.
Dr. Patel, who had traveled with the second team, noticed immediately.
“Cassidy?”
“I’m fine.”
Another pain came.
Stronger.
She checked her watch.
“How long since the last one?”
“I don’t know.”
Her expression changed.
“Your water may have broken.”
I looked down.
Fluid darkened the hem of my dress.
Not now.
Not in this house.
Not during a storm.
Dr. Patel guided me toward the sofa.
“We need immediate transport.”
Marcus spoke into his radio, then cursed.
“The helicopters are grounded. Visibility has collapsed.”
“Road?” Arthur asked.
“Partially blocked by snow and fallen trees.”
The nearest hospital was nearly an hour away in good weather.
My daughter had chosen the worst possible moment to enter the world.
Another contraction struck.
I doubled over.
Brendan moved toward me.
Marcus blocked him.
“Let him through,” I said.
I hated that I needed anyone.
But Dr. Patel required help preparing the room, boiling water, gathering clean towels, and connecting portable monitoring equipment.
Brendan followed every instruction.
He carried furniture aside.
He found blankets.
He held the medical light when the generator flickered.
Hours passed.
The storm shook the windows while my labor intensified.
Between contractions, I saw flashes of my childhood.
My mother reading near the fireplace.
My mother laughing in the kitchen.
My mother waving from the dock.
I had returned to the house searching for proof of her death.
Instead, I was preparing to bring life into it.
Near midnight, Dr. Patel’s expression became serious.
“The baby’s heart rate is dropping.”
Fear erased everything else.
“What do we do?”
“I need to reposition you. Cassidy, listen to me carefully.”
I obeyed.
The heart rate recovered briefly, then fell again.
Brendan stood near the doorway, white-faced.
“Can I help?”
Dr. Patel looked around.
“The portable oxygen tank is in the equipment case downstairs.”
“I’ll get it.”
Marcus caught his arm.
“The lower hallway hasn’t been cleared. Adrian may not have come alone.”
“The baby needs oxygen.”
“I’ll send an officer.”
A crash sounded below.
Then gunfire.
One of Adrian’s associates had entered through the kitchen.
Marcus drew his weapon and ordered everyone into the library’s reinforced alcove.
The oxygen remained downstairs.
Brendan looked at me.
For the first time since I had known him, there was no calculation in his face.
Only terror for our child.
“I can reach it through the service stairs.”
“You could be killed,” I said.
“I know.”
He moved toward the door.
I grabbed his sleeve.
“Brendan.”
He looked back.
There were a thousand things I could have said.
I chose the only one that mattered.
“Bring it back.”
He ran.
Gunshots cracked downstairs.
A man shouted.
Then silence.
Seconds stretched.
My daughter’s heart rate continued falling.
Dr. Patel prepared emergency measures.
Just as I thought Brendan had abandoned us again, he stumbled through the doorway carrying the oxygen tank.
Blood covered his shirt.
A bullet had grazed his side.
“I brought it,” he said.
Then he collapsed.
The oxygen stabilized my daughter.
Federal agents secured the house.
At 1:47 in the morning, with the storm raging over the Atlantic, my baby girl was born.
Her first cry filled my mother’s library.
Strong.
Angry.
Alive.
Dr. Patel placed her against my chest.
I wept into her dark hair.
Brendan regained consciousness near the fireplace.
He watched us from across the room.
“Is she okay?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“What will you name her?”
I looked toward my mother’s portrait.
“Eliza Grace Ashcroft.”
His eyes filled with tears.
“Can I see her?”
I held my daughter closer.
The answer was not simple.
Forgiveness was not the same as trust.
Regret was not the same as repair.
But Eliza deserved a father who had the opportunity to become better, if he accepted the consequences of what he had done.
“You can see her,” I said. “But you don’t get to escape justice.”
Brendan nodded.
“I know.”
He touched one finger to our daughter’s tiny hand.
May you like
She closed her fingers around it.
Then federal agents stepped forward and placed him under arrest.
