Chapter 17 - Dry Dock Number Three
Police surrounded Mercer Shipworks.
Rosalind was ordered to remain outside.
She ignored everyone until Detective Morales physically blocked her.
“Your husband may be armed.”
“I need those records.”
“Records can burn. You cannot.”
Rosalind stared at her.
Morales did not move.
Then Tobias appeared.
“No heroics.”
Rosalind almost laughed.
“From you?”
“Especially from me.”
Smoke began rising from the archive roof.
Garrett had started another fire.
Fire crews entered under police protection.
Then a security camera showed Garrett leaving through the east corridor toward Dry Dock Three.
He carried a metal document case.
Morales’s team moved.
Rosalind watched from the command vehicle.
Garrett reached the empty dry dock.
A massive concrete basin surrounded by cranes and steel stairs.
Rain began again.
Like the river.
He climbed toward the control platform.
Police shouted.
“Garrett Vale! Stop!”
He did.
Then turned.
The document case remained in his hand.
Morales used a loudspeaker.
“Put the case down.”
Garrett laughed.
Even from the camera, Rosalind knew that laugh.
Not joy.
Defiance.
He opened the case.
Paper.
Thomas Mercer’s original records.
Some Penelope had surrendered, but apparently not all.
He held them over the edge.
Rosalind grabbed the command microphone.
Morales tried to stop her.
Garrett heard her voice.
“Burn them and you still go to prison.”
He froze.
Rosalind continued.
“You kept recordings.”
His face changed.
“You documented your own crimes because you thought you were smarter than everyone around you.”
Garrett looked toward the camera.
“You think this is about me?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
He laughed.
“It’s about families that build fortunes and call themselves innocent.”
Rosalind thought of her father’s bribes.
“You’re right.”
Garrett looked surprised.
“My father did things I’m ashamed of.”
Silence.
“Say it again.”
“Thomas Mercer approved corrupt payments.”
Garrett smiled.
“There.”
“But he tried to stop.”
Garrett’s smile faded.
“And your father murdered him for it.”
“You can’t prove Everett ordered murder.”
“Harold Finch can.”
Garrett’s eyes changed.
He had not known Finch was alive.
Rosalind continued.
“Penelope kept the Harbor file.”
He tightened his grip on the case.
“Keller talked.”
Nothing.
“Lucy kept your voice notes.”
Garrett looked toward police.
Every secret he believed divided among weak witnesses had combined.
Rosalind said:
“You lost because everyone you compromised finally compared notes.”
Garrett shouted:
“You think Tobias is innocent?”
“No.”
Tobias heard.
Rosalind continued:
“He lied to me for fifteen years.”
Tobias lowered his eyes.
“Penelope isn’t innocent.”
“No.”
“My father wasn’t innocent.”
“No.”
“Neither am I.”
Garrett stared.
Rosalind’s voice became steady.
“But none of our mistakes belong to you.”
His expression broke.
For years, Garrett survived by making other people’s flaws his permission.
Now Rosalind refused the bargain.
Police moved closer.
Garrett held the case over the edge.
“Come get it.”
An officer advanced.
Garrett stepped backward.
Wet steel.
A drop into the empty dock below.
Rosalind’s body tightened.
Not an accident.
Not another convenient death.
Morales shouted:
“Stop moving.”
Garrett looked down.
Then back toward the camera.
For one second, Rosalind thought he might jump.
Instead he lowered the case.
He placed it on the platform.
Raised his hands.
Police arrested him without gunfire.
Without a fall.
Without giving him the dramatic death his story might have wanted.
As officers cuffed him, Garrett looked into the security camera.
“Rosalind.”
She could hear him through the open channel.
“What?”
“I did love you.”
Silence.
The same truth he had admitted to Penelope.
Rosalind answered:
“I know.”
His face changed.
“And that’s why you’ll never understand what you did.”
Police led him away.
Firefighters contained the archive blaze.
Most originals survived in fire-rated cabinets.
The metal case survived too.
Inside were additional documents linking Everett Vale’s company to Finch, political payments and early planning around Mercer succession.
The conspiracy finally had a paper spine stretching across fifteen years.
May you like
But the hardest scene waited elsewhere.
Penelope went into premature labor that night.
