Page 48 of Inside the Maelstrom: Part Two
I ran my hand down Hendrick’s body. “Drix, are you okay? Did they get you?”
“Only my face. Just a graze.”
“Otto! Hendrick! Are you hit? Slide across the floor toward my voice,” Harry called. We crawled toward the hallway, but there were no more bullets. We scrambled into the hall, and then rushed down the stairs.
Sampson was waiting at the bottom, and he grabbed us both. “Are you okay? Fuck, Drix, you’re bleeding.” He looked at the security around us, including Harry, who’d pulled an AK-15 from somewhere. “Someone call the fucking cops and an ambulance. That’s gonna need stitches.”
There it was. The other shoe.
Tobias had turned up at the same time as the cops, which was kind of impressive. We probably didn’t pay the poor schmuck enough for this bullshit. He sat next to us on the couch as the cops went over and over what happened with us, including why I was on my knees, how many shots, who would want to hurt us, etc.
We could have hedged, but now wasn’t the time for trying to keep shit close to our chest. It was why Tobias was here, recording the interview himself, and making sure all this shit was above board.
“You think your father—a United States senator—is trying to kill you?” The detective obviously thought we were nuts.
Sampson glared. “I don’t think we stuttered, Detective.”
“Where’s your wife, Mr. Kenley? She’s the one who stands to directly inherit from your death, unlike your father, if the details you’ve given me are correct.”
“It wasn’t Aviva,” Hendrick growled.
“She stands to make millions and millions of dollars,” the detective argued.
“It isn’t Aviva!” Drix shouted, exploding to his feet. “It’s my fucking father. He’s pissed he couldn’t get me locked away and have unfettered access to those bank accounts. I sent Aviva away so she didn’t get hurt. She was almost killed two days ago! She wouldn’t stand to make any money if she was dead too, would she?”
He paced around the room, and I watched him. He was fucking spiraling again.
The detective watched him warily, before turning back to me. “What happened two days ago?”
It was Tobias who answered though, which was probably best. “Mr. Kenley was fighting a petition for conservatorship by his father. They were standing right there on the sidewalk when the courthouse tragedy occurred.”
The detective's brows pulled together. “That has been determined to be an accident. An elderly gentleman had a seizure of some kind.”
Tobias gave the detective a pitying look, like he was two stupid comments away from getting a dunce cap. “It certainly looked that way, and it would be convenient to believe so. But what was a ninety-year-old man from New Jersey, with a history of beating murder charges, doing in the business district?”
“Fighting a parking fine.”
“Sounds convenient. I’m sure the police tried to confirm that too?”
The detective held Tobias’s gaze. “I don’t know. That isn’t my case. If it’s procedure, it would have been done.”
That meant no. Fuckers saw an open-and-shut case, and slammed the door on any other possibilities.
“Mmm, we both know it isn’t procedure, Detective. That’s why Mrs. Kenley isn’t here right now. She was sent away for her own safety.”
The detective’s frown deepened. “Be that as it may, it isprocedure”—he emphasized the word—“to interview the spouses in attempted murder cases such as this.”
Attempted murder.
Someone had tried to murder us. Murder Hendrick.
My whole body felt cold, and when Sampson covered my hand with his, I realized I was shaking. I threw him a tight smile, but I anchored myself to the heat of that hand.
Tobias continued to argue about disclosing Aviva’s location, just saying she was in Europe with her bodyguard, and they continued to go around and around in circles until the detective stood with a put-out sigh.
“I can’t investigate a fucking senator on the word of a couple of disgruntled kids.”
“You can do your fucking job, Detective. You can direct any further questions you have for my clients to me, because they are disappearing today. There’s still a contract out for Hendrick’s death, and I will be fucking damned if they stay around here like sitting ducks, waiting for the NYPD to pull their heads out of their asses.”
