Chapter 8 - The Stairwell
I took the stairs three at a time.
"Rebecca!"
"Claire!"
Her voice came from two floors down.
I rounded the landing and found her sitting against the wall.
A man in hospital scrubs was sprinting toward the lower exit.
I started after him.
"Don't!"
Rebecca clutched her shoulder.
I stopped.
The man disappeared through the door.
"What happened?"
"He took the documents."
"Are you hurt?"
"He shoved me."
I crouched beside her.
"Did you see his face?"
"Mask."
"Build?"
"Male. Maybe six feet."
"Anything else?"
She handed me a torn piece of fabric.
Dark blue.
Not hospital scrubs.
Something underneath.
A uniform?
Security arrived moments later.
So did David.
I watched his reaction when I showed him the photograph from Rebecca's folder.
He went silent.
"You were following Dad."
"No."
"You're in the reflection."
"I was meeting him."
"When?"
"Two weeks before he died."
"You told me Dad contacted you twenty-three days before he died."
"He did."
"And then you met."
"Yes."
"Why leave that out?"
"Because he asked me to."
"David."
"I know."
"You keep saying that as if it fixes anything."
He looked exhausted.
"Arthur believed Vincent Hale was involved."
Hale was immediately brought upstairs.
When he saw the photograph, he frowned.
"I remember this."
"What were you discussing?" Rebecca asked.
"Unauthorized gateway activity."
"And David?"
"I didn't know he was there until afterward."
David said, "Arthur asked me to observe."
"Why?" I asked.
"He wanted to know whether Hale was being followed."
"Was he?"
David nodded.
"Yes."
"By whom?"
"I couldn't identify him."
"Same height as the man who just attacked Rebecca?"
"Maybe."
Hale studied the torn fabric.
"That's not security cloth."
David touched it.
His expression sharpened.
"What?"
"Military dress fabric."
I looked at him.
"You're sure?"
"Close enough to concern me."
A hospital camera captured the attacker leaving through a loading entrance.
His mask remained on.
But the camera caught a medal ribbon on the uniform beneath the stolen scrubs.
David enlarged it.
"Army."
The attacker had deliberately worn a dress uniform to a hospital?
Unless he'd arrived as someone authorized enough not to be questioned.
Morris arrived with agents.
He was furious.
The courthouse evidence was missing.
Hospital evidence had been stolen.
A federal judge had been drugged.
Now an attorney had been assaulted.
"This is no longer your private investigation," he told us.
"Good," Rebecca said. "Do something."
He didn't appreciate that.
By dawn, agents had traced the pharmacy lot number from Dad's bottle.
The prescription had originally been issued to Ethan.
The label had been reprinted through a pharmacy administrator account.
Account holder: deceased.
Name: Dr. Samuel Keene.
Dead eighteen months.
Another borrowed identity.
The emergency hearing to exhume Dad was granted.
Mom cried when the order came through.
Not because she opposed it.
Because the possibility she'd lived beside his murder for months finally became real.
Dad's remains were transferred to a federal forensic facility.
Results would take time.
Court proceedings remained suspended.
Meanwhile, the company's board called an emergency meeting.
Bennett Aeronautics was collapsing under the scandal.
Government contracts were frozen pending review.
Employees were terrified.
Ethan remained hospitalized and formally stepped aside.
Hale became acting executive.
That bothered me.
"Convenient," I said.
Rebecca agreed.
"We need to know more about Hale."
David did too.
We searched Dad's surviving archive.
Most documents in box seven had been damaged, but not destroyed.
A forensic document specialist recovered partial text.
One file contained access logs.
Another contained a handwritten list of names.
WARD.
KEENE.
MERCER.
DAWSON.
HALE.
Hale.
His name was there.
Not proof of guilt.
But proof Dad was investigating him.
When confronted, Vincent didn't deny it.
"Arthur suspected everyone."
"Did he suspect David?"
"Yes."
David stiffened.
Hale added, "He suspected me, Ramos, Ethan, even Margaret."
Mom looked hurt.
Hale shrugged.
"Arthur trusted evidence more than people."
That sounded exactly like Dad.
Then the forensic specialist found something else.
A handwritten note wedged between two pages.
A date.
The night Dad died.
And four words:
MEET C. UNDER HANGAR 4.
"Who is C?" Rebecca asked.
No one knew.
Bennett Aeronautics owned a private test facility with four hangars.
Hangar 4 had been closed for renovation before Dad died.
Federal agents searched it.
Nothing.
Then Hale mentioned an old underground maintenance corridor beneath the hangars.
It had been sealed years earlier.
Or supposedly sealed.
Morris obtained a warrant.
By afternoon we stood at the test facility behind federal agents.
The underground entrance was hidden beneath a steel access panel.
Its lock had been replaced recently.
Inside, a narrow staircase descended into darkness.
Agents went first.
We waited.
Ten minutes later, Morris called me down.
The maintenance corridor smelled like dust and old concrete.
At the far end stood a room.
Inside was a desk.
Computer.
Printer.
Document scanner.
Military uniform pieces.
Fake identification badges.
And photographs.
Hundreds.
People entering government buildings.
Contractor offices.
Military bases.
Dad.
Me.
Ethan.
Mom.
David.
Hale.
Judge Harrison.
Someone had been tracking all of us.
On one wall hung a large organizational chart.
Names connected by red lines.
Some crossed out.
The real Nathan Ward.
Crossed out in 2019.
Dr. Keene.
Crossed out.
Dad.
Crossed out.
At the center was a blank square.
No name.
Just a handwritten letter:
C.
Rebecca whispered, "Arthur's note."
MEET C. UNDER HANGAR 4.
A drawer in the desk was locked.
Agents opened it.
Inside was an old digital recorder.
Morris played the most recent file.
Dad's voice.
"You've used my company long enough."
Another voice answered.
Distorted.
Calm.
"Your company was useful."
"You altered my daughter's record."
"That was not personal."
"Everything involving my child is personal."
My eyes burned.
Dad continued.
"I'm going to expose you."
The other person laughed softly.
"No, Arthur."
A chair scraped.
Then:
"You are going to help me choose who replaces you."
The recording ended.
Morris checked the metadata.
Recorded the night Dad died.
Rebecca looked at the wall again.
"Who's C?"
An agent called from the corridor.
"We found another door."
Behind the wall was a second room.
Empty except for one chair.
One military dress jacket hung from a hook.
Colonel insignia.
Nathan Ward's stolen identity.
I approached carefully.
Inside the jacket pocket was a courthouse visitor badge.
Issued yesterday.
Name:
COLONEL CHARLES MERCER.
I remembered Dad's handwritten list.
MERCER.
David's face changed when he saw it.
"Charles Mercer isn't supposed to exist."
"What do you mean?"
"He was Ward's commanding officer."
"Where is he?"
David looked at me.
"He died in 2017."
A phone rang inside the empty room.
Not ours.
Morris located it beneath the chair.
Disposable phone.
One incoming call.
Caller ID:
CLAIRE BENNETT.
My own name.
Morris answered on speaker.
A man's voice said:
"Major Bennett, your father asked the wrong question."
I stepped closer.
"What question should he have asked?"
The voice paused.
"Not who erased your service."
Then:
"He should have asked who gave the order."
The line clicked dead.
May you like
Behind us, the steel corridor door slammed shut.
And the lights went out.
