A Question of Will by Alex Albrinck Page B

of the motive, the nation has been deprived of one its few true bright lights in recent years. Stark famously started his medical data mining company as a means of showing insurance companies where fraud and double billing were occurring, and provided true actual costs for medical services, devices, medications, and other supplies. After the insurance industry began using the data to reduce payments to medical practitioners, Stark made the data available to everyone, and the forced transparency of actual costs dramatically cut the price of medical care in the country, making Stark a wealthy man in the process. He later invested in other businesses, including the building materials company which popularized creating panels of all sizes, shapes, and colors with nanomaterials, building components which are smaller than human cells.
    “After several attempts on his life and aborted kidnapping attempts in his home town of Chicago, Stark relocated himself and his business headquarters to the small southeastern Ohio town of Pleasanton. Finding the city nearly deserted and bankrupt, Stark bought the town, razed and rebuilt its aging infrastructure with new technology, and enclosed the entire city in a dome created from nanotech components. The explosion of innovation, growth, and entrepreneurship in the once-bankrupt town has energized the entire nation.
    “A well-known philanthropist, Stark is famous for giving away hundreds of millions of dollars in and around his local community, and he and his wife, Hope, have traveled the world seeking to aid and inspire others to success and prosperity.
    “Will Stark was thirty-five years old. His wife, Hope, was twenty-eight. Their young son, who suffered from various developmental disabilities, was only six. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his grieving friends and community.”
    Gena allowed the tears to flow during the on-air eulogy. Stock video showed the massive walls encircling the community of mansions, and the buildings housing the two on-duty guards looked small in comparison. Live video, taken as darkness had fallen, showed still-glowing embers where the home of Will and Hope Stark once stood. Gena wondered how the arsonist could have gotten inside.
    Unless...no, it couldn’t be.
    The phone rang.
    Gena picked up the phone, her hand trembling. “Hello?”
    “Is this Gena Adams?”
    “Yes, it is. May I ask who is calling?”
    “Ms. Adams, my name is Michael Baker, and I am with the Pleasanton police department.”
    No, no, no! Please, no! “Is something wrong, Officer Baker?” Gena tried to keep her voice steady, through some misguided notion that if she pretended nothing was wrong, then nothing would be wrong.
    “Ms. Adams, have by chance heard the news about the fire earlier today that took the lives of the Stark family?”
    “I just got home from work and saw it on the news. It’s awful, isn’t it?”
    “Unfortunately, Ms. Adams, they weren’t the only ones who perished today. I’m very sorry.”
    No, no, no! “I...I don’t understand. What are you saying?” Say that it’s a joke, a sick, twisted joke. I won’t even be mad. I promise.
    “I’m very sorry, Ms. Adams. The perpetrator killed both security guards on duty at the time in order to gain entry. One of them was Mark Arnold. I’m very sorry for your loss, Ms. Adams.”
    Gena choked back a sob. “No. It can’t be him. We’re getting married next month. He can’t be gone! You’ve got the wrong man ! I’ll come down to the police station or the morgue or wherever and tell you you’ve got the wrong man! It’s somebody else!” She was sobbing now, shouting in an attempt to hide the tears and shock and horror at the news she’d received.
    The police officer let her finish her rant, and then spoke in a calm, quiet voice. “I wish that were the case, Ms. Adams, but it is not. I’d strongly advise you not to come identify him; remember him as he was. There are others who can handle the official