SEVENTY-THREE

Independence Day, Washington, DC

Cas’s body was being ravaged by metastatic lung cancer. He had almost died of respiratory failure in the hospital ER and had spent ten days in the ICU. That could enervate even the most robust of patients, never mind one riddled with malignancy. By the time Cas was back on the recovery ward, he looked like a bag of bones.

Derek was his durable power of attorney and next of kin by default. Once Cas was strong enough, he would go to an assisted living center to spend the short time he had left on earth. At the bedside of the dying man, Derek felt pity for him and a kind of sad anger.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t attend Gordon’s—your father’s—funeral,” Cas said, his eyes closed, his voice feeble and his words muffled by the oxygen non-rebreather mask over his nose and mouth.

“You were in no state,” Derek said.

Cas nodded. “Did you ever get the autopsy report?”

“Yes.” Derek knew it by heart. “The cause of death was drowning subsequent to blunt force trauma to the left parietal region of the skull. The mechanism of death was asphyxia. In other words, whoever killed Dad bashed in his skull first, and then threw him into the river, where he drowned.”

A flash of pain registered on Cas’s face. “God,” he whispered.

“I know the part you played in his death,” Derek said after a moment.

Cas’s eyes fluttered open. “What?”

“Urging my father to stay in Ghana. I’m not sure if I should call it encouragement or egging him on to dig deeper and deeper into the case. I don’t know this for sure, but I feel that if not for you, Dad would most likely have safely returned to the States.”

Cas kept his gaze fixed on the ceiling, where there was nothing more interesting to see than hospital white, and after a while, tears broke the dam and rushed down his hollow, weathered cheeks like water into a craggy canyon. “How did you know?” he whispered.

“Your emails between you and Dad were all in the cloud,” Derek said. “That’s the only morsel Apple grudgingly tosses to the FBI. So, they dug it up and notified me.”

“Derek, I didn’t think anything like that would happen to Gordon.”

“But you were willing to risk it just so you could get a feature in the Observer?” Derek asked, his voice sharpening.

“I knew I had cancer,” Cas said. “I knew I was going to die. One last round before I go. One final article to leave the world with. That’s what I was thinking.”

“But what I want to know,” Derek said, voice shaking, “is did you give a thought to what kind of trouble Dad could have gotten into, and did? I mean, did you use him without a second’s thought?”

Cas turned his head slightly in Derek’s direction. “I took it as a collaboration between us. I didn’t feel I was coercing him. He was free to say no. He wanted to help me the way I helped him get started in Washington.”

Derek’s lip curled. “So, he owed you, is what you’re saying.”

“No.” An odd, wheezing noise emanated from Cas, the sound of him weeping and trying to say something at the same time.

Derek leaned forward. “What?”

“Kill me. Please. Take my oxygen off and I’ll die in ten minutes.”

Derek looked at the oxygen meter on the wall. It was set high at fifteen liters per minute.

Cas followed Derek’s gaze and nodded, yes, that. “Turn it off.”

Derek drew in his breath and shook his head. “I can’t do it. I won’t.”

Cas’s eyes beseeched him. “Forgive me.”

Derek didn’t answer. Perhaps in time, he thought, straightening up. “I have to get going now. I’m your DPA whether I like it or not. All your affairs will be taken care of.”

When he reached the door, Derek half turned as he heard Cas try for the last word. He had moved his oxygen mask to one side and now he said, in a strikingly stronger tone, “I left everything to your dad. And in his absence, it all goes to you.”