Chapter 2 - Room 417
Dante recognized fear in other people easily.
He had built half his adult life around it.
Fear made people talk too quickly.
It made them look toward exits.
It made liars explain things nobody had asked them to explain.
But the man standing beyond the hospital elevator did not look afraid.
He looked tired.
Late fifties.
Gray coat.
Weathered face.
No visible weapon.
The silver key hung between two fingers.
Dante moved away from Harper's room.
The stranger took one step backward.
"Don't."
Dante stopped.
"You have ten seconds."
The stranger looked toward Harper's room.
"They'll kill her if you make this look like a confrontation."
Dante's voice dropped.
"Who?"
"Same people who sent me."
"You attacked her?"
"No."
"Five seconds."
"My name is Samuel Kane."
Dante knew the name.
Not the face.
Kane had once been a financial investigator working organized-crime cases for the state.
He had vanished twelve years ago after a courthouse bombing killed two witnesses.
Most people assumed he had died.
Dante had assumed something else.
That Kane had been bought.
Apparently both assumptions were wrong.
"What do you want?"
"Not here."
"You came to my secretary's hospital."
"Because you wouldn't have come otherwise."
Dante took another step.
Samuel immediately raised both hands.
"I didn't hurt her."
"Then choose your next sentence carefully."
"The attack was designed to bring you here."
Dante's eyes narrowed.
"Why?"
"Room 417."
"What's inside?"
"The part of your father's death nobody ever told you."
Dante stared at him.
Harper's nurse appeared behind the glass door.
Samuel noticed her.
"I can't stay."
"You aren't going anywhere."
"You have security downstairs."
"I have security everywhere."
"Then you should ask why none of them saw me enter."
That landed.
Dante glanced briefly toward the elevators.
When he looked back, Samuel had already begun walking toward the stairwell.
Dante followed.
Samuel slipped through the door.
By the time Dante reached it, the stairwell was empty.
No footsteps.
No second exit before the next floor.
Impossible.
Dante returned to Harper's room.
She was awake.
"You went after him."
"Yes."
"And?"
"He disappeared."
"You sound annoyed."
"I am."
"Good. It makes you almost normal."
Dante pulled a chair close to the bed.
Her humor vanished.
"Was he part of this?"
"I don't know."
"Who was he?"
"Samuel Kane."
Recognition crossed her face.
"The investigator?"
Dante looked at her sharply.
"You know the name?"
"I've filed documents with it."
"Where?"
"The archive project."
Dante went still.
Six months earlier, Harper had been assigned to digitize decades of Moretti Holdings records.
Most were boring corporate documents.
Land purchases.
Shipping contracts.
Insurance records.
Harper had repeatedly complained about missing pages from several old folders.
Dante had told her not to worry about them.
Now he wished he had asked which folders.
"What documents?"
"I don't remember all of them."
"Try."
"Old port leases. Security invoices. Payments to a consulting company."
"What company?"
Harper frowned.
"Northstar."
Dante leaned back.
Northstar Strategic Logistics had been one of his father's shell companies.
It hadn't existed for thirteen years.
"Anything else?"
"There were initials next to several transfers."
"What initials?"
"E.V."
Elias Voss.
Dante's phone rang.
Vincent.
"Talk."
"We're at the office."
"We?"
"Me, Marco, Lena, six security guys."
"Lock it down?"
"Yes."
"Anything unusual?"
Vincent hesitated.
"Your archive was already open."
Dante stood.
"What?"
"The secure room. Door wasn't forced. Somebody used an authorized code at 1:37 A.M."
"Whose code?"
"Harper's."
Dante looked at the woman in the bed.
Her eyes widened.
"I've been here since before midnight."
Dante put Vincent on speaker.
Harper said, "My card was in my purse."
Vincent replied, "The system logged your credentials."
"Someone stole them."
"Possibly."
Dante looked at Harper.
"The attackers."
She nodded slowly.
"What did they access?" Dante asked.
"One cabinet."
"Which?"
Vincent took a breath.
"Your father's."
Dante closed his eyes briefly.
Of course.
"Don't touch anything."
"Dante, there's more."
"What?"
"Someone left a box on your desk."
"What box?"
"Wooden. Old."
"Open it."
"You sure?"
"Now."
Dante heard movement.
A latch.
Then silence.
"Vincent?"
"You need to see this."
"Describe it."
"A pocket watch."
Dante's stomach tightened.
His father had carried one every day.
Silver casing.
Black enamel initials.
DM.
It had disappeared the night he died.
"What else?"
"An envelope."
"Addressed to?"
"You."
"Read it."
Vincent opened the paper.
His voice became quieter.
"'Dante. You were right to spare the boy. You were wrong about everything else.'"
Harper stared at Dante.
Vincent continued.
"That's it."
"Handwriting?"
"Looks like your father's."
Dante's eyes went to the photograph beside Harper's bed.
His father.
Luca.
The impossible figure in the upstairs window.
"What time was the archive accessed?"
"1:37."
"What time did Harper arrive at the hospital?"
He looked at the nurse.
She checked the chart.
"1:42."
Five minutes.
The attack, the stolen access credentials, and the hospital admission were coordinated almost to the minute.
Someone had planned every step.
Dante looked at Harper.
"They didn't attack you because you were vulnerable."
She swallowed.
"They attacked me because of the archive."
"Yes."
"I found something."
"You found something they were afraid you'd understand."
Harper frowned, trying to remember.
"Two days ago."
"What happened?"
"I was scanning Northstar invoices."
"And?"
"One invoice didn't make sense."
"What about it?"
"It was issued after the company supposedly dissolved."
Dante leaned closer.
"How long after?"
"Eleven years."
His expression changed.
"That's impossible."
"I thought so too."
"Who approved payment?"
Harper closed her eyes, searching her memory.
"There wasn't a signature."
"What was there?"
"A code."
"What code?"
She opened her eyes.
"417."
The room became silent.
Dante picked up the silver key.
Room 417.
The key.
The invoice.
The message.
All the same number.
He turned toward the door.
Harper caught his sleeve.
"You're going."
"Yes."
"Alone?"
"That was the instruction."
"Which means going alone is exactly what they expect."
Dante looked at her.
Even injured, she was still doing her job.
"You're staying here."
"Obviously."
"Security will be outside."
"Dante."
He paused.
"Don't go because you're angry."
"I'm not angry."
"That's worse."
He almost answered.
Instead he took her hand briefly.
A gesture so unlike him that Harper stared.
Then he left.
Room 417 wasn't in the main hospital tower.
A receptionist directed him toward an older wing connected by a narrow corridor.
The fourth floor was partially closed for renovation.
Plastic sheeting covered sections of wall.
Half the ceiling lights were off.
Dante walked alone.
Then 417.
The silver key entered perfectly.
The door opened.
Inside was not a hospital room.
It had been stripped bare.
One chair stood in the center.
A projector sat on a table.
And on the opposite wall hung a white sheet.
Dante stepped inside.
The door closed behind him.
The projector switched on by itself.
A video filled the wall.
His father appeared.
Alive.
Older than Dante remembered him.
The timestamp showed footage recorded two days after his supposed death.
Dante stopped breathing.
His father looked directly into the camera.
"If you're seeing this, Dante, then they finally came for Harper."
Dante's blood went cold.
The recording continued.
"I don't know how many years have passed. But if they touched that girl, it means she found what I buried."
Dante stared.
His father leaned toward the camera.
"And if she found it, your brother Luca is already in danger."
Dante pulled out his phone.
No signal.
The video suddenly cut to black.
Then the screen displayed a live security feed.
Harper's hospital room.
Her bed.
The doctors.
The nurses.
And one figure dressed in medical scrubs walking toward her door.
Dante stepped closer.
The figure raised his face toward the camera.
It was Samuel Kane.
May you like
He reached for Harper's door.
The handle began to turn.
