Chapter 13 - The Bullet in the Wall
The bullet had missed Beatrice by less than six inches.
It struck the wall behind her and buried itself beneath an old family photograph.
Grant’s team chased the shooter through the trees.
Adrian was gone.
So was the unknown sniper.
Damian stood in the lake house staring at the bullet hole.
“Adrian didn’t fire that,” Tessa said.
“No.”
“So there’s someone else.”
Evelyn sat with Beatrice near the fireplace, their hands locked together after nearly three decades apart.
Beatrice whispered, “We always knew there were two.”
Damian turned. “Two what?”
“Men your father trusted with Rosewood.”
“Adrian and?”
Evelyn looked toward the broken window.
“Malcolm Voss.”
Tessa stiffened.
“No. Voss tried to help you.”
“He did later,” Evelyn said. “But before that, he helped build it.”
Tessa went pale.
The man who treated Nora had also helped create the system that killed patients before Nora ever became sick.
Grant entered carrying a small evidence bag.
“We found the shooter’s casing.”
Damian examined it.
“Anything useful?”
“Maybe. It’s military match ammunition. Rare.”
Grant hesitated.
“What?”
“Same manufacturer we issue to our executive protection teams.”
Damian looked up slowly.
Someone inside Vale Security was helping Adrian.
Grant understood immediately.
“Sir, I can lock down the roster.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever it is will run.”
Tessa crossed her arms. “So what do we do?”
Damian looked at the shattered glass.
“We give them something worth staying for.”
Back at the estate, he announced that the evidence under the chapel had been recovered and would be transferred to federal authorities the next morning.
It was a lie.
At midnight, one security officer left his post.
Damian and Grant followed the internal cameras as he moved through the service corridor toward Damian’s private vault.
The officer entered a code.
The vault opened.
Grant stared at the screen.
“That code belongs to me.”
Damian looked at him.
Grant went still.
“I did not give it to him.”
The officer stepped inside.
Then another man entered behind him.
Tessa leaned toward the monitor.
Her face changed.
“Damian.”
He already saw it.
May you like
The second man was Dr. Malcolm Voss.
And he was carrying a gasoline can.
