Chapter 5 - VICTORIA’S LAST SECRETWe tracked Victoria to an abandoned medical warehouse in Brooklyn.
Marcus wanted to call the FBI.
Richard said half the local task force might already be compromised.
I said we didn’t have time to debate.
Victoria’s tracker was moving.
Then it stopped.
Seventeen minutes later, we were parked across from a boarded warehouse near the river.
Rain had started falling.
Marcus studied the building through binoculars.
“Four outside.”
“Armed?”
“Yes.”
Richard looked at me.
“You cannot go in there.”
“They asked for me.”
“That’s why you shouldn’t.”
I held Rachel’s folder against my chest.
“Victoria saved evidence that can clear my name.”
“She also hid the truth about your wife for three years.”
He wasn’t wrong.
That was the problem.
My feelings toward Victoria had become a knot I couldn’t untangle.
Anger.
Gratitude.
Suspicion.
Something dangerously close to trust.
And underneath all of it, the image of her lying in that hospital bed with no family beside her.
She had written my name because she trusted me.
Maybe because Rachel had.
Maybe for another reason.
I was about to find out.
Marcus created a distraction at the west entrance.
Richard stayed in the SUV with copies of the files.
I carried an empty folder.
The real evidence was already uploaded to three encrypted locations.
If I didn’t return in one hour, Marcus would release everything.
At least that was the plan.
Plans lasted approximately thirty seconds.
Inside the warehouse, two men searched me.
They took my phone.
A third man led me through rows of old medical equipment.
Victoria sat in a wheelchair under a hanging industrial light.
Hospital gown.
Bare feet.
IV still taped to her arm.
Her face was gray.
But she was awake.
Malcolm stood behind her.
I stopped.
“You.”
He smiled.
“You sound disappointed.”
“You kidnapped a woman after surgery.”
“I transferred her.”
“With armed men.”
“Semantics.”
I looked at Victoria.
“You okay?”
“Better than Malcolm will be.”
Even half-dead, she managed to sound like a CEO.
His jaw tightened.
“Folder.”
I held it up.
“First she comes with me.”
Malcolm laughed.
“You’re in no position to negotiate.”
“Then why am I here?”
That stopped him.
“I have something you want.”
“You have copies.”
“Yes.”
“So killing me won’t solve your problem.”
His eyes sharpened.
“You learned quickly.”
“My wife taught me.”
The smile vanished.
I stepped closer.
“Did you kill Rachel?”
Victoria looked at Malcolm.
So did everyone else.
He didn’t answer.
That was worse.
“Did you?”
Malcolm walked around Victoria’s chair.
“Your wife was an unfortunate complication.”
My blood turned to ice.
Victoria whispered, “Don’t.”
I moved forward.
A guard shoved me back.
Malcolm continued.
“Rachel was bright. Persistent. Morally exhausting.”
“You murdered her.”
“I authorized a problem to be contained.”
I lunged.
Two men grabbed me.
I fought anyway.
Malcolm watched.
“Sit him down.”
They forced me into a chair.
Victoria’s eyes burned with fury.
“You just confessed.”
“To whom?”
Malcolm looked around the warehouse.
“No police.”
“No recording device.”
“No witness who matters.”
Victoria smiled.
That frightened him.
“What?”
She looked at me.
“Tell him.”
I stared at her.
“Tell him what?”
Her smile weakened.
“The bracelet.”
I looked at my wrist.
Sophie’s cheap purple bracelet.
My daughter had restrung it two weeks earlier after the elastic broke.
Victoria had touched it in the car.
Then again before surgery.
I stared.
“You put something in it?”
“A transmitter.”
Malcolm ripped the bracelet from my wrist.
Too late.
A red light blinked between two purple plastic beads.
His face changed.
Marcus’s voice suddenly boomed through speakers near the loading entrance.
“Malcolm Pierce, step away from Victoria.”
The warehouse erupted.
Men drew guns.
Lights exploded.
Marcus had cut the main power.
I dropped behind the chair.
Victoria threw herself sideways from the wheelchair just as a gunshot hit where her head had been.
I crawled to her.
“Can you move?”
“Terribly.”
“Good enough.”
I pulled her behind a forklift.
Gunfire echoed.
Sirens approached outside.
Not local police.
Federal vehicles.
Marcus had contacted a small FBI public-corruption unit Rachel had named in her files.
One agent she had trusted.
Special Agent Lena Ortiz.
Malcolm’s men began running.
He didn’t.
He grabbed Victoria.
A pistol pressed beneath her jaw.
“Stop!”
Everyone froze.
He dragged her toward a rear exit.
She could barely stand.
Blood seeped through her surgical dressing.
I stepped out.
“Take me instead.”
Victoria snapped, “Ethan, shut up.”
Malcolm laughed.
“Even now she gives orders.”
“Let her go.”
“You’re important too.”
“I’m evidence.”
He considered that.
Then something strange happened.
Victoria whispered something to him.
I couldn’t hear it.
Malcolm’s face went white.
“What did you say?” I asked.
He stared at her.
“No.”
Victoria smiled.
“My father kept copies.”
“Where?”
“You’ll never know.”
He tightened the gun.
Victoria winced.
I saw her eyes move toward me.
Then down.
There was a fire extinguisher mounted beside my knee.
I understood.
Maybe.
I grabbed it.
Sprayed.
A white cloud exploded across Malcolm’s face.
Victoria dropped.
A gunshot fired.
I tackled him.
We hit the concrete.
The pistol slid away.
Malcolm punched me.
I hit him back.
Years of grief came out through my fist.
Rachel’s funeral.
Sophie crying for her mother.
Three birthdays without her.
Every night I sat alone after putting my daughter to bed.
I hit him again.
Then someone grabbed me.
Marcus.
“Enough!”
I was shaking.
Malcolm lay bleeding.
Agents surrounded him.
Handcuffs clicked.
I crawled toward Victoria.
She was on the floor.
Her eyes were closed.
“Victoria?”
Nothing.
Blood spread beneath her.
“No.”
I pressed my hands against the dressing.
“Stay with me.”
Her eyelids moved.
“You yell a lot for an accountant.”
I almost laughed.
Instead, I cried.
The ambulance came this time.
Victoria didn’t argue.
At the hospital, surgeons repaired reopened internal sutures.
She survived.
Again.
Malcolm Pierce was arrested for kidnapping, conspiracy, obstruction, and attempted murder.
The news exploded before sunrise.
Whitmore Global stock dropped twenty-two percent.
Three board members resigned.
Two disappeared.
Federal agents raided six offices.
I thought that meant the worst was over.
I was wrong.
Because Malcolm wasn’t the most powerful person in Meridian.
He was only the person responsible for Whitmore Global.
Three days later, Agent Ortiz met me privately.
She carried a sealed evidence bag.
Inside was a photograph recovered from Malcolm’s home.
Rachel.
Victoria.
Richard.
And a fourth person.
A woman.
Beautiful.
Elegant.
Early fifties.
Standing beside them.
I recognized her instantly from magazine covers and framed photographs throughout Whitmore Tower.
Victoria’s mother.
Eleanor Whitmore.
There was only one problem.
Eleanor had supposedly died twelve years earlier.
I stared at Ortiz.
“She’s dead.”
“No.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where is she?”
Ortiz slid a second photograph across the table.
Security footage from two nights earlier.
A private airfield outside New York.
Eleanor Whitmore stepping off a jet.
Alive.
And walking beside my eight-year-old daughter’s school principal.
May you like
That was when I understood Meridian wasn’t finished with Sophie.
They had only changed the person watching her.
Related Stories
