Chapter 6 - The Wrong Guard
Marcus locked down the property.
Every exterior gate closed. Security shutters dropped over the underground garage. The house network went offline. Four remaining guards were ordered to the main hall and disarmed one by one.
Owen was gone.
His company phone sat in the security office.
His personal car was still in the garage.
“He had help,” Marcus said.
I sat at the kitchen table with Lily on my lap while Nora made hot chocolate she never actually served. My daughter had stopped crying, but she kept one fist wrapped around my shirt.
“Was the bad man trying to take me?” she asked.
I hated that she had to ask.
“He wasn't going to get you.”
“But he tried.”
“Yes.”
Kids know when adults lie. I wasn't going to insult her with one.
She leaned close. “Nora kicked him.”
I looked at Nora.
She shrugged nervously. “He deserved it.”
Marcus returned carrying a small evidence bag. Inside was a brass key.
“Found this in the passage where Owen came through.”
I recognized the engraving.
H-17.
My father's old storage vault in the sub-basement.
Nobody had used it since he died.
“Why would Owen have that?” Nora asked.
“I don't know.”
Lauren, now confined to a guest room with a guard outside, had demanded an attorney. Keller had gone silent.
Marcus and I took the private elevator down.
The H-17 vault sat behind two steel doors in the oldest part of the mansion. I entered the code my father used for thirty years.
Rejected.
Marcus inserted the brass key.
The keypad lit green.
The vault opened.
Inside, the shelves were empty except for one medical file and a laptop.
My name was on the file.
The date was from eleven years before the shooting.
I opened it.
The first page was a neurological evaluation I had never seen.
The second page carried my father's signature.
The third made my hands go cold.
Patient: Vincent Hale.
Recommendation: immediate disclosure to patient.
May you like
Handwritten beneath it:
Do not tell him until control transfers.
