Chapter 12 - Thirty Seconds to Choose

Mara stepped away from the doorway. "Celia, leave the room now. Don't touch anything."

Elise called the local emergency dispatcher while clearing the walkway. A couple emerged from the next room with shopping bags. Mara directed them across the lot and away from the building.

Celia fumbled with the chain. Her right hand was stiff from the old injury. Mara wanted to grab the door, but a panicked shove could make things worse.

"Look at me," Mara said. "One link at a time."

After the motel was evacuated, the clerk brought blankets and paper cups of water for people waiting beside the highway. No one asked whose fault it was. Mara watched strangers take care of strangers and remembered why stolen medical supplies were never merely lines on an invoice.

The chain fell. Celia stepped out clutching a slim blue ledger to her chest. All three women backed toward the road as the chirping continued, then stopped.

Nothing exploded. The sound had come from a battery-powered tracker taped beneath a bedside table. The alerting device was designed to frighten anyone who found it—and perhaps signal that they had arrived.

Police secured the room. Technicians recovered a microphone and the tracker. Someone had been listening, waiting for Celia to reveal herself.

At a nearby command post, Celia broke down.

"I should have called you," she told Mara. "Thomas wanted me to leave with the records. Victor took my phone and held me at the clinic."

"Did you see Thomas die?"

"I saw his car go into the water. He was still alive when we reached him. I heard him shout for help."

Mara gripped the table until her knuckles hurt.

Celia opened the blue book. It did not list shipments. It listed payments attached to employee numbers, including charitable donations routed through shell organizations. One column recorded approvals with single initials: V, H, and C.

"Vale, Hale, Cross," Elise said.

Celia nodded. "But look at the final page. The biggest payment isn't theirs."

At the bottom was a transfer of four million dollars to a coded recipient.

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The initials were E.W.

Elise Warren went very still.