Chapter 18 - The Cannery
Ethan had already left the police station.
His phone went straight to voicemail.
Emily wanted to scream.
“He went after Grant,” she said.
Ruiz was moving before she finished.
The old Cole Cannery sat beside the river, abandoned for fifteen years. Ethan had spent summers there as a teenager before the company moved production overseas.
Police units converged from two directions.
Emily was ordered to stay at the station.
She lasted four minutes.
Ruiz caught her in the parking lot.
“You are seven months pregnant and were held at gunpoint this morning.”
“My husband is walking into a building with a man who killed his father.”
“You still cannot come.”
Emily looked at her. “Then bring him back.”
Ruiz did.
At the cannery, Ethan found Grant beside an old furnace.
That part Emily learned later from body-camera footage.
Grant held a metal case.
“You always were sentimental,” he told Ethan. “Your father was too.”
“Where are the records?”
“Safe.”
“You killed him.”
Grant laughed. “Your mother finally talked.”
“She said you hit him with a tire iron.”
“She watched.”
“That doesn’t make you less guilty.”
“No. It makes your family honest for once.”
Ethan stepped closer.
Grant opened the metal case.
Inside were old drives, papers, and a rusted tire iron sealed in plastic.
“You kept the murder weapon?” Ethan asked.
“Insurance.”
“Against my mother.”
“Against everyone.”
Police shouted from outside.
Grant grabbed the tire iron.
Ethan backed away.
“You’re done.”
Grant swung.
Ethan blocked the blow with his forearm and crashed into a steel railing. Grant swung again.
Ethan ducked.
The tire iron struck an electrical box.
Sparks erupted.
Dry insulation caught fire.
Flames climbed the wall.
Grant ran toward the rear exit with the case.
Ethan chased him through smoke.
A section of old catwalk collapsed between them.
Grant jumped.
The case fell open.
Hard drives scattered across the concrete.
Then Grant slipped at the edge of the loading platform.
He caught the railing with one hand.
Below him, black river water rushed between concrete pillars.
Ethan stood over the man who had killed his father.
Grant looked up.
May you like
“Help me.”
Ethan didn’t move.
