Aftermath

Chapter 3-'No good deed goes unpunished.'

Chapter 3

Bursting through Voss' bedroom door with the grace of a wrecking ball, Paul said, "You've got to see this." Two weeks after being shot, while still on crutches, his kid brother sped around their mother's country estate like a Formula-One racer. Voss didn't have any interest in returning to training camp in L.A after Panama, so he opted to go home to Sweden and keep Paul company while he recovered, which decision Voss was now regretting.

"Bugger off, I'm trying to sleep," he said and pulled a pillow over his head.

"Wake up." Paul dropped his laptop on to the bed beside his head. "You need to see what they are doing to her." He didn't need to ask who the 'her' Paul was referring to was. Voss knew who 'her' meant.

Paul's physical recovery seemed remarkable, having the best doctors and surgeons money could buy had a tendency to keep complications away, but his brother's emotional recovery, Voss was not so sure whether to chart his progress as improving or regressing. He had become obsessed with the woman who saved his life. He practically stalked her online, following any and every report on Emmylou McKindly and her family. He shared them mostly with Voss because the rest of the family didn't really know her like they did, he'd said. The press was having a field day and the story coming out of Panama seemed to grow bigger every day.

Paul flopped his butt down on the pillow next to Voss's head and started tapping on his keyboard, inches from Voss's nose. If he wasn't so damn loveable, staying mad at him would be easier.

Swedish media was following the story for the obvious involvement of the Falkin-Sverkersson name, the US press for the connection to Voss and his upcoming summer studio film and the Canadian press because that's where the McKindly lived.

The press never got the initial story right, and Emmylou's involvement in the rescue, was never properly explained. Voss kept expecting her to show up on the morning talk shows with her version, maybe she was still fielding offers and deciding on which news magazine she preferred. Maybe some editor was already pitching a book or movie rights ideas to her.

"This was from yesterday." Paul played a clip first from the Swedish television that Voss had already seen last night, just more speculative journalism that made Voss what to punch things.

A large part of him of course resented the media attention and always would. Being the grandson of some long dead bloodline to the royal family had never meant anything but headaches for Voss—more a curse than anything. Everyone assumed he received special treatment in getting on the Olympic boxing team because of who his grandfather had been. They didn't allow for the fact that he was undefeated in his weight class...though his parents had had him trained by the best trainers in the country---maybe some of the criticism was fair, but Voss and his siblings worked twice as hard as any of their counterparts, determined to represent the family well. After he blew out his knee in a snowboarding accident, ending his professional fighting career, his transition into acting in action movies had seemed seamless to most people, but a poor performance would be an embarrassment to his entire family. The press wouldn't have held back hounding his mother for it, that added pressure only ever made him try harder to push himself to be worthy of the recognition.

Paul played the clip again of a Swedish morning show host drilled a reporter over which version of events were credible. Three separate witnesses from the dive boat had come forward with three separate versions of events. It was clear to Voss that the other passengers were trying to down play the lack of help they gave played and somehow threw part of the blame for the three innocent deaths on Emmylou. As much as he hated one day hearing Emmylou tell her version of events, a part of him hoped she'd hurry up before the media recorded fiction as fact.