I called Clara back before the line fully disconnected.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
I was already moving.
“Rachel, get hospital security to Clara’s room now.”
She reached for her phone.
Daniel closed the laptop and followed me.
Julian said, “Where are you going?”
“North Carolina.”
“That’s ten hours.”
“Then find me a plane.”
One of the investors quietly said his company jet was fueled at Midway.
I looked at him.
He nodded once. “Take it.”
I did not waste time thanking him.
Rachel reached the hospital switchboard and demanded security. Daniel called Maya.
No answer.
Then Clara called.
I answered.
“Clara?”
“I’m here.”
Her breathing was uneven.
“What happened?”
“Maya was on the phone from her house. She went downstairs because she heard glass break.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re still at the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Security is coming.”
“They’re here.”
Voices sounded behind her.
I closed my eyes for half a second.
“Do not leave the room.”
“What about Maya?”
“Police first.”
“She may be hurt.”
“I know.”
My own voice sounded strange.
Too calm.
That was what fear did to me when it became too large.
Daniel touched my arm and pointed at his screen.
Maya’s phone had pinged.
“Her location is moving.”
“Where?”
“Away from her house.”
I told Clara.
“No,” she said. “She wouldn’t leave without telling me.”
Unless she had no choice.
Rachel arranged a car to Midway.
Julian followed us into the elevator.
“You are not coming,” I said.
“Yes, I am.”
“No.”
“Liam—”
“You forged the message that ended my marriage.”
His face tightened.
“I know.”
“You blocked Clara from reaching me.”
“I know.”
“And now her sister may have been taken because of evidence connected to the same operation.”
“I know.”
“Then explain why I should let you anywhere near them.”
He looked at the elevator floor.
“Because whoever is doing this knows my family better than yours.”
Daniel made a dismissive sound.
Julian turned on him.
“You disappeared for fifteen years. You don’t know anything about us.”
“I know enough.”
“No, you know Mother.”
“And you don’t?”
Julian stepped closer.
“Someone used Peregrine today. Someone knew Martin’s credentials. Someone knew where Clara was, when her son would be delivered, and where Maya lives.”
He looked at me.
“That information did not come only from Mercer Holdings.”
He was right.
I hated that he was right.
“Come,” I said. “You stay where I can see you.”
At Midway, the plane was ready.
The investor’s pilot took off eleven minutes after we arrived.
I sat with my phone open, watching a map Daniel had built from Maya’s last location signal.
The phone moved south, then east.
Then stopped.
“Where?” I asked.
“Parking lot near Interstate 40.”
“Could she have dumped it?”
“Or whoever took her did.”
Clara texted.
Police were at Maya’s house.
Broken rear window.
Signs of a search.
Blood on the kitchen floor.
No Maya.
I called her.
“Do they think the blood is hers?”
“They don’t know.”
Her voice shook.
I wanted to say something reassuring.
There was nothing honest enough.
“Where’s the ledger?”
A pause.
“With me.”
“How?”
“Maya brought it to the hospital before she went home.”
I looked at Daniel.
Then why break into the house?
“They didn’t know she had moved it,” Clara said.
That meant whoever went there had stale information.
A small advantage.
Maybe the first one we had.
“Did Maya tell anyone she brought it to you?”
“No.”
“Text?”
“No. She just came.”
“Good.”
Clara whispered, “Liam, if they took her because of me—”
“They took her because of what they’re afraid she knows.”
“She doesn’t know anything.”
“Then that helps her.”
It was weak logic.
We both knew it.
I heard our son’s monitor faintly through the phone.
“How is he?”
“Stable.”
I closed my eyes.
Two people I loved were in danger in the same city, one of them fighting to breathe and the other missing.
My entire life had narrowed to a place I could not reach fast enough.
Daniel was studying photographs from the ledger.
“Something’s wrong.”
“What?”
“The appointment list.”
He enlarged it.
“These entries were added recently.”
“How recently?”
“Different ink. Different pressure. Could be weeks, maybe days.”
Julian leaned over.
“Can you compare it to Martin’s writing?”
“It isn’t his.”
Evelyn had remained in Chicago under supervision from company counsel, but Daniel had photographed samples of her handwriting before we left.
Not hers either.
“Who had the ledger after Martin died?” I asked.
“Anna Keene,” Daniel said.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe what?”
“What if Martin never mailed it?”
Daniel frowned.
“Anna said he did.”
“She said he told her he did.”
He understood.
Someone else could have mailed the box later.
Someone who had added Clara’s medical appointments first.
“Why send surveillance records to the person being surveilled?” Julian asked.
That was the right question.
I stared out the plane window.
“To scare her?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Then they would have made sure she opened it.”
“To warn her?”
“Maybe.”
“Or to make sure the ledger surfaced now.”
Everyone looked at me.
“Southshore signing day,” I said.
The box arrived months earlier.
But Clara only opened it on the morning the deal was supposed to close.
Coincidence was possible.
After the last twenty-four hours, I had stopped trusting it.
Daniel pulled up Martin’s history.
“Martin resigned eleven months ago. Died eight months ago.”
“When did the package arrive?”
I called Clara.
“Maya says four months ago.”
Daniel sat back.
“Then Martin did not mail it before his death unless the package sat somewhere for four months.”
“What was the postmark?”
Clara examined the envelope.
“Charlotte. Four months ago.”
Julian whispered, “Someone mailed it after he died.”
“Exactly.”
“Who had his ledger?”
Daniel’s face hardened.
“His widow.”
Nobody said Anna’s name.
We did not have to.
I called her.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Straight to voicemail.
Daniel searched public property databases and found her Scottsdale address.
Then another record.
“She sold the house six months ago.”
“Where did she move?”
“No forwarding record.”
Julian laughed bitterly.
“So the frightened widow may not be a frightened widow.”
“She knew Evelyn’s name,” I said.
“She also knew exactly what would make us suspicious of Evelyn.”
That was true.
Every new clue seemed designed to sharpen one accusation while hiding another possibility.
I thought back to Anna’s words.
Martin trusted you.
She had known Daniel’s name.
Had known his connection to Martin.
Had known about the red ledger.
Too much knowledge for someone who claimed to avoid the company.
Daniel looked physically ill.
“I believed her.”
“Because she said your father kept the same kind of ledger.”
“Yes.”
“She knew what would hook you.”
His expression darkened.
We had all been manipulated through the thing we most wanted to believe.
I wanted proof Clara had tried to reach me.
Julian wanted proof his worst actions were instructions, not choices.
Daniel wanted proof his father had fought back.
Someone kept giving each of us just enough.
The pilot announced our descent.
Clara called again.
“Police found Maya’s car.”
“Where?”
“Outside an abandoned medical office.”
“Is she there?”
“They’re searching now.”
The address was less than twenty minutes from the hospital.
“Stay with security.”
“Liam—”
“No.”
“You cannot order me around.”
“Then consider it begging.”
Silence.
That reached her differently.
“I’ll stay.”
When we landed, police met us on the tarmac.
I had expected questions.
Instead, a detective named Ruiz told me Maya had been found alive.
My knees nearly gave way.
“Where?”
“Inside the building.”
“Is she hurt?”
“Concussion. Cut on her arm. She’s conscious.”
“Did she see who took her?”
“She remembers one person.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“Who?”
Ruiz looked down at his notes.
“Martin Keene.”
Nobody moved.
I laughed because the alternative was shouting.
“That’s impossible.”
“You know him?”
“He’s dead.”
The detective looked up.
“That is what we are trying to clarify.”
At the hospital, Clara was not in her original room.
My heart stopped until a nurse explained security had moved her to a restricted floor near the NICU.
I found her sitting upright, pale and furious, the red ledger on a chair beside her.
She stood when I entered.
For half a second, we did not know what to do.
Then she crossed the room and wrapped both arms around me.
I held her carefully because she was still recovering from surgery.
Neither of us spoke.
The last time I had held her, we were married and angry.
Now we were divorced, exhausted, terrified, and connected by a child sleeping down the hall.
She pulled back first.
“Maya is downstairs.”
“I know.”
“They won’t let me see her yet.”
“They will.”
Daniel and Julian entered.
Clara’s body stiffened when she saw Julian.
He stopped immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked at him for a long moment.
“That is not enough.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
He lowered his eyes.
“Then I don’t know what to say.”
“Good.”
It was the coldest thing I had ever heard Clara say.
He accepted it.
Detective Ruiz entered with Maya’s statement.
“She says the man who grabbed her knew where she kept the spare key, knew the layout of her house, and called her by name.”
“Did she know him personally?” I asked.
“No.”
“Then how did she identify Martin?”
“He showed her identification.”
Daniel frowned.
“What kind?”
“Old company badge.”
“That could be fake.”
Ruiz nodded.
“She also heard the other person call him Martin.”
“Other person?”
“There were two.”
My skin tightened.
“Description?”
“Maya only saw one clearly.”
Ruiz handed us a sketch generated from her description.
Daniel looked at it.
Then handed it to Julian.
Julian sat down.
The man resembled Martin Keene enough to explain Maya’s identification.
But he was younger.
Maybe by fifteen years.
Clara looked at the face.
“Who is he?”
Evelyn answered from the doorway.
None of us had heard her arrive.
“That,” she said, “is Martin Keene’s son.”
Daniel stood.
“He had a son?”
Evelyn looked at him.
“Andrew Keene.”
Julian stared at her.
“You never mentioned him.”
“There was never a reason.”
“There is now.”
Evelyn stepped inside under escort from one of our attorneys.
I pointed at the sketch.
“What does Andrew have to do with Mercer Holdings?”
Her answer changed everything again.
“He worked for you.”
I searched my memory.
“No.”
“Not under that name.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed.
“What name?”
Evelyn looked toward the NICU corridor.
Then at Clara.
Then me.
“Adrian Cole.”
I knew it instantly.
Our former network security architect.
The man who had designed the authentication system Daniel later discovered was compromised.
He had left Mercer Holdings eighteen months ago.
Three weeks before the boardroom surveillance device appeared.
And six weeks before Clara first noticed the Southshore invoices.
Daniel whispered, “He built the doors.”
Evelyn nodded.
“And after Martin turned against the operation, his son learned how to keep using the keys.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 8: Adrian Had Been Inside Our Systems From the Beginning, but His Real Target Was Never the Forty-Eight Million Dollars
Seventeen Seconds Before the Biggest Deal of My Career, a Doctor Told Me I Had a Son
Part 7 of 35
