Chapter 7 - Four Minutes
Connor refused to give us the van’s location.
Ruiz threatened murder charges.
I threatened nothing.
I simply looked at him and described, in a calm voice, what would happen to his life if two witnesses died while a recording device connected to his phone counted down.
His confidence lasted twenty seconds.
“Old railway access road,” he said. “Near the water tower.”
Ruiz transmitted the location.
The nearest patrol unit was seven minutes away.
The timer showed three minutes and twelve seconds.
The water tower was nearly two miles from the greenhouse.
I ran toward Ruiz’s vehicle.
“Daniel!”
She threw me the keys.
We drove through the campus maintenance gate and onto a gravel road flooded by rain. Branches struck the windshield. The phone remained on speaker.
Maya was shouting through the cloth around her mouth.
Ortiz lay motionless beside her.
Two minutes.
At the base of the water tower, the road divided.
No van.
“Which direction?” Ruiz asked.
I studied the video feed.
Behind Maya, through the rear window, a white light flashed at regular intervals.
A railway crossing signal.
“Left.”
We accelerated.
One minute, twenty seconds.
Then I saw the van beneath the crossing lights.
Its engine was running.
No driver.
We stopped twenty yards away.
“Bomb squad is coming,” Ruiz said.
“They don’t have time.”
“Daniel, wait.”
I was already out.
The van’s rear doors were chained. I pulled the tire iron from Ruiz’s trunk and struck the lock.
Forty-eight seconds.
The chain broke on the third blow.
I opened the door.
The smell of gasoline hit me immediately.
Maya was tied to one side. Ortiz to the other. Between them sat a metal box connected to wires and a digital timer.
Thirty-five seconds.
Ruiz climbed inside and cut Maya’s restraints.
I dragged Ortiz toward the doors.
The timer showed twenty-three seconds when I noticed the wires did not lead to an explosive charge.
They led to the fuel pump.
The ignition device was designed to flood the rear compartment with gasoline and create a fireball when the timer reached zero.
“Move!”
Ruiz carried Maya.
I pulled Ortiz across the gravel.
We had covered fifteen feet when the van erupted.
Heat struck my back and threw me forward.
For several seconds, I could hear nothing but a high ringing.
Then Maya was crawling toward me, screaming that Ortiz was not breathing.
Ruiz checked his pulse.
“He’s alive.”
An ambulance arrived minutes later.
Connor was arrested at the greenhouse. This time, even Judge Kilpatrick could not release him without attracting attention.
Maya had a concussion and bruised ribs but no fractures.
Ortiz remained unconscious.
At the hospital, doctors found a sedative in his bloodstream. He had been held for almost a full day.
Ruiz sat beside me in the waiting room.
“We have Connor’s statement at the greenhouse,” she said. “The kidnapping. The van. His phone.”
“Will it be enough?”
“To charge him, yes.”
“To reach Evan Cross?”
“Not yet.”
Connor’s father had already hired three attorneys.
By morning, the university issued a public statement claiming Connor had acted alone during a “personal dispute involving another student.”
Lily’s name was not mentioned.
Neither were the Founders.
At nine, Richard Cross appeared on local television.
He stood outside the Bradley administration building, silver-haired and composed, with his son beside him.
Evan looked directly into the cameras.
“We are praying for the injured students,” Richard said. “However, we urge the public not to spread irresponsible accusations against innocent members of our community.”
A reporter asked whether Evan knew Lily.
Evan stepped forward.
“I barely knew her.”
It was a mistake.
Ruiz paused the broadcast.
“We never released Lily’s connection to him.”
“He’s preparing a defense.”
“Or warning her.”
Lily watched the same broadcast from her hospital bed.
Her fingers dug into the blanket when Evan appeared.
I turned off the television.
She grabbed my wrist and shook her head.
Then she wrote on her board:
PLAY IT AGAIN.
I restarted the clip.
When the camera showed Evan’s right hand, Lily pointed.
The Founder’s ring was gone.
But a pale line marked the skin where he normally wore it.
“He was there?” I asked.
Lily wrote:
YES.
“Did he hit you?”
She hesitated.
Then:
ONCE.
Only once.
“Who broke your jaw?”
Her hand shook.
GRANT.
“Grant Holloway?”
YES.
“And Connor?”
HE HELD ME.
Three attackers.
Exactly as she had indicated.
“Why did Evan hit you only once?”
Lily closed her eye.
Then she wrote:
I CALLED HIM A COWARD.
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
That sounded like my daughter.
“What did you discover?”
Her marker hovered over the board.
She looked toward the closed door.
Ruiz checked the hallway.
Lily wrote:
THE SCHOLARSHIP FUND IS FAKE.
“What do you mean?”
MONEY GOES TO FAMILIES.
“Whose families?”
VICTIMS.
Ruiz and I exchanged a look.
Payments disguised as scholarships.
Silence purchased with university money.
“How many?” Ruiz asked.
Lily wrote:
TWENTY-SEVEN.
The number was staggering.
Twenty-seven students.
Twenty-seven families paid to disappear.
“Is that what is in the notebook?”
PART.
“Where is the rest?”
Lily pointed to her head.
She had memorized it.
Ruiz leaned closer.
“Who authorized the payments?”
Lily wrote a name.
PRESIDENT CARVER.
University President Malcolm Carver.
A man photographed with senators, governors and national education leaders.
The public face of Bradley University.
I asked, “Does Richard Cross know?”
Lily’s eyes filled with fear.
She erased the board.
Then wrote:
RICHARD CREATED IT.
Before we could continue, my phone rang.
The caller was blocked.
A distorted voice spoke when I answered.
“Mr. Mercer, you saved two people tonight.”
“Who is this?”
“But you cannot save everyone.”
A video arrived.
It showed my house.
The front door.
The porch where Lily used to sit with her mother.
Then the camera moved closer to the living-room window.
Inside, someone had placed Anne’s silver moon necklace on the table.
The necklace stolen from Lily during the attack.
May you like
The voice returned.
“Come home alone if you want the truth about your wife.”
