CHAPTER 7 The Man Everyone Trusted
Daniel Reeve woke with blood on his collar and no memory of how he entered the hospital garage.
Marcus stood beside his bed in the emergency department.
Detective Brooks remained near the wall.
Daniel’s face was pale beneath the fluorescent lights.
“What happened?” Marcus asked.
Daniel touched the bandage near his temple.
“I was following Vanessa.”
“Where?”
“To a storage facility near the river.”
“Did you find her?”
“No.”
“Then how did you get here?”
“I don’t know.”
Marcus’s patience snapped.
“You were carrying a dead doctor’s access badge.”
Daniel looked confused.
“What?”
Brooks placed the evidence bag on the table.
Daniel stared at the badge inside.
“I’ve never seen that.”
“It was in your pocket.”
“Someone planted it.”
Marcus stepped closer.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try harder.”
Daniel looked at him.
“I’ve protected you for nine years.”
“And tonight my wife was attacked while someone used your security network to help cover it.”
Daniel’s eyes changed.
“My network?”
“The forged psychiatric report was stored in a secure company archive.”
Daniel shook his head.
“Only four people had access.”
“You were one of them.”
“So were you.”
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
Brooks intervened.
“Mr. Reeve, tell us about Vanessa Cole.”
“She was competent. Quiet. Ambitious.”
“Loyal?”
Daniel hesitated.
“To Marcus.”
“That was not my question.”
Daniel looked away.
“No.”
Marcus stared at him.
“You knew?”
“I suspected she was passing information.”
“To Isabella?”
“I didn’t know.”
“How long?”
“Two months.”
Marcus’s face hardened.
“And you said nothing.”
“I was investigating.”
“My wife was nearly killed while you investigated.”
Daniel sat forward despite the pain.
“I did not know she was in danger.”
“You knew someone forged a medical report.”
“I thought it was corporate pressure.”
“What does that even mean?”
Daniel lowered his voice.
“Someone was trying to make you doubt Khloe.”
Marcus went still.
Daniel continued.
“Someone wanted problems in your marriage.”
“You knew that.”
“Yes.”
“And you let it continue.”
“I wanted to identify the source.”
“Who did you think it was?”
Daniel looked at Brooks.
Then back at Marcus.
“Your mother.”
Marcus’s expression emptied.
“My mother has been living in Switzerland for three years.”
“She returned six weeks ago.”
Marcus stared at him.
“That’s impossible.”
“I saw her.”
“Where?”
“Outside Vanessa’s apartment.”
Marcus took out his phone.
He called his mother.
The number was disconnected.
Brooks wrote something down.
“What is her name?”
“Eleanor Thorne.”
Daniel looked at Marcus.
“She never approved of Khloe.”
“That doesn’t mean she planned an attack.”
“No,” Daniel said. “But she met with Lorenzo Rossi twice last month.”
Marcus’s face tightened.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wanted proof.”
Marcus grabbed the bedrail.
“You keep using that word like it excuses you.”
Daniel looked exhausted.
“I made a mistake.”
“Yes.”
The admission filled the room.
Marcus stepped back.
Brooks picked up the badge.
“Did Vanessa know Eleanor Thorne?”
“Yes.”
“Did Isabella?”
“Since childhood.”
Marcus rubbed both hands over his face.
The conspiracy was no longer circling around Khloe.
It was inside his own family.
Brooks received a message.
She read it.
“We found surveillance from the storage facility.”
Daniel looked up.
“Did Vanessa appear?”
“Yes.”
“What time?”
“Twenty minutes before you arrived.”
“Was she alone?”
Brooks turned the screen around.
The footage showed Vanessa entering a unit with a tall man in a dark coat.
The angle was poor.
His face was hidden.
Then a second woman appeared.
Silver hair.
Elegant posture.
A familiar profile.
Marcus stared.
His mother.
Eleanor Thorne.
“She was there,” Daniel whispered.
Marcus looked at him.
“You knew.”
“I saw her outside the apartment before. I didn’t know she was at the storage unit.”
Brooks continued scrolling.
“There’s more.”
The footage showed Daniel arriving.
He entered the building.
Twelve minutes later, two men carried him out through a side door and placed him in his car.
Marcus looked at Daniel.
“You were attacked.”
“Yes.”
Brooks froze the footage.
One attacker wore gloves.
The other wore hospital scrubs beneath his coat.
When he turned slightly, his face became visible.
Samuel’s brother.
Julian Vale.
Daniel stared at the image.
“That’s him.”
“You recognize him?” Brooks asked.
“He was at a Thorne board meeting three months ago.”
Marcus’s head snapped toward him.
“What?”
“He used another name.”
“What name?”
“Dr. Adrian West.”
Marcus went pale.
The name was almost identical to Adrian Wells.
A deliberate choice.
A joke hidden inside a lie.
“What was he doing at the board meeting?”
“He presented a proposal for a private maternal health initiative.”
Khloe.
Pregnant women.
Hospital access.
Marcus’s voice became low.
“Who invited him?”
Daniel looked at him.
“Your mother.”
Back in maternal intensive care, Khloe watched the clock.
Marcus had been gone for forty minutes.
Samuel stood at the window.
Elaine sat near the door.
Detective Brooks had placed two officers outside.
Khloe looked at her uncle.
“Did my mother know?”
Samuel turned.
“About your father?”
“Yes.”
“She knew he was afraid.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Samuel hesitated.
“She knew his death might not have been accidental.”
Khloe closed her eyes.
“So everyone knew except me.”
“Not everything.”
“Enough.”
Elaine shifted uncomfortably.
Khloe looked at her.
“You said someone warned you about the suite.”
“Yes.”
“Did they send anything else?”
Elaine thought for a moment.
“There was an attachment.”
Samuel turned sharply.
“What attachment?”
“I couldn’t open it. It looked corrupted.”
“Do you still have it?”
“Yes.”
Samuel took the phone.
The file name was a sequence of numbers.
Khloe stared at it.
“That was the date my father died.”
Samuel immediately sent the file to digital forensics.
Minutes later, an audio recording played through his phone.
Static.
Heavy breathing.
Then a man’s voice.
David Vale.
Khloe recognized him from old family videos.
“If you are hearing this, they found me.”
Khloe stopped breathing.
The recording continued.
“The ledgers are not in the hospital. They are not in the house.”
A sound echoed in the background.
A car door.
David’s voice became urgent.
“Khloe has the key.”
Khloe looked at Samuel.
“I don’t have any key.”
The recording crackled.
David spoke one final sentence.
“Ask her what I gave her on her sixteenth birthday.”
The audio ended.
Khloe stared at the phone.
She had received only one gift from her father that year.
A small silver music box.
It had disappeared the night he died.
Or so she had believed.
Then Elaine slowly reached into her bag.
“I think I know where it is.”
Everyone turned toward her.
Elaine removed a tarnished silver music box.
Khloe’s blood ran cold.
“Where did you get that?”
May you like
Elaine’s hands trembled.
“Isabella gave it to me downstairs.”
