Chapter 11 - Before the Bullet
The police took Keller's statement at 2:17 in the morning.
By 3:00, Detective Elena Ruiz was sitting across from me in the breakfast room, reading the original shooting report.
“You were attacked outside Hale Tower at 8:42 p.m.,” she said. “Single shooter. Two rounds fired. One hit your leg. One hit the car.”
“Yes.”
“Keller says Lauren met him at 8:02.”
“Yes.”
“That suggests planning.”
“That's what I thought.”
Ruiz didn't like assumptions. I liked that about her.
She asked who benefited if I survived but remained medically unfit.
The list was shorter than I wanted.
Lauren.
Whitmore Strategic Holdings.
Three Hale board members who had pushed for an emergency transfer of authority after my injury.
And, technically, my younger half-brother, Daniel.
I hadn't spoken to Daniel in two years.
Ruiz looked up. “Where is he?”
“Seattle, last I heard.”
Marcus walked in holding a tablet.
“Not Seattle.”
He placed it in front of me.
A traffic camera from two nights earlier showed Daniel's car entering our town.
Another camera caught him one block from the mansion.
I called him.
He answered on the fourth ring.
“Vincent.”
“You're nearby.”
Silence.
“Come to the house.”
“I can't.”
“Why?”
“Because Lauren knows I'm here.”
I stood. “What does Lauren have to do with you?”
Daniel exhaled hard.
“Everything.”
He told me he had spent six months investigating the trust after our father's former attorney contacted him. He had found offshore payments, fake medical invoices, and proof Thomas Whitmore never died.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because every time I tried, someone knew first.”
I looked at Marcus.
Daniel continued. “Your phone, your office, your house—somebody close to you has been feeding them everything.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
Then I heard a car door slam on Daniel's end.
His breathing changed.
“Vincent,” he whispered, “they found me.”
May you like
A crash followed.
The call went dead.
