Chapter 4 - Why They Wanted Elena
“No.”
Vittorio’s answer came instantly.
Marco nodded.
“I agree.”
Elena looked between them.
“I’d appreciate being consulted before everyone decides whether I’m being kidnapped.”
“You’re not going,” Vittorio said.
“Obviously.”
Another message arrived.
An address.
An abandoned medical research facility outside the city.
Vale Medical Dynamics.
The company from the device.
Vittorio stared at it.
“They’re inviting us home.”
Marco began organizing a tactical team.
Elena followed Vittorio into his study.
“Why me?”
“They want leverage.”
“Then they would ask for you alone.”
He looked at her.
“That occurred to me.”
“Maybe they think I saw something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
She remembered the electronic modules.
The plate.
The wiring.
Nothing.
Then something surfaced.
“One module was different.”
Vittorio stopped.
“How?”
“The others had red lights.”
“And?”
“One had blue.”
He called Marco.
Photographs were reviewed.
Elena had been right.
Five transmitters.
One data recorder.
The blue light indicated local storage.
“What was it recording?” Elena asked.
Marco looked grim.
“Possibly audio.”
Vittorio’s face hardened.
Months of conversations.
Calls.
Private meetings.
Whoever had installed the device had not only tortured him through sleep deprivation.
They had recorded him.
“Where is the module?” Elena asked.
Marco went quiet.
Vittorio noticed.
“Where?”
“Evidence room.”
“Bring it.”
A guard returned three minutes later.
Empty-handed.
“It’s gone.”
Nobody spoke.
“How?” Marco demanded.
“Evidence room was locked.”
“Cameras?”
“Seventeen-minute gap.”
Elena felt sick.
Seventeen minutes.
The exact time she had spent examining Vittorio’s room that morning.
Coincidence?
No.
Vittorio thought the same thing.
“They planned this.”
The ransom demand for Elena suddenly made sense.
She had touched the recorder.
Possibly seen something.
Possibly done something without knowing.
“Elena,” Marco said. “When you pulled the foam back, did you remove anything?”
“No.”
“Think.”
“I did.”
She closed her eyes.
Padding.
Foam.
Black boxes.
Wires.
Then she remembered something falling.
“A little memory card.”
Vittorio stared.
“What?”
“It dropped onto the mattress.”
“What did you do with it?”
“I thought it was debris.”
“Where?”
Elena’s face changed.
“My apron pocket.”
Everyone looked at her apron.
The one she was not wearing.
It hung inside her room.
They ran.
Her door was open.
The apartment had been searched.
Mattress overturned.
Drawers emptied.
Apron gone.
Vittorio swore.
Marco searched the hallway.
No one.
Then Elena noticed white thread on the floor.
A piece of her apron.
Leading toward the service corridor.
They followed.
Another scrap.
Then another.
At the end, the trail stopped beside a laundry chute.
Marco looked down.
Elena leaned over.
Something white was caught twenty feet below.
Her apron.
They opened the basement chute.
Inside the apron pocket remained the memory card.
Whoever searched her room had missed it before discarding the garment.
Marco stared at her.
“You may be the luckiest woman alive.”
“My landlord strongly disagrees.”
They took the card to an isolated computer.
Encrypted.
Marco’s technicians worked.
Vittorio refused to leave.
Elena sat nearby.
Hours passed.
Around midnight, the first file opened.
Audio.
Vittorio’s bedroom.
His voice.
Carlo’s voice.
A conversation from three months earlier.
Carlo had been begging Vittorio to sell part of the family company.
Vittorio refused.
Then another recording.
A lawyer.
Another.
A politician.
Another.
Marco.
Nothing incriminating.
Then a file labeled NIGHT_71.
They played it.
Vittorio was asleep.
A low-frequency hum filled the background.
Then a voice.
Very faint.
A man standing near the hidden recorder.
“Raise output twelve percent.”
Another voice replied.
“That could cause neurological damage.”
“I know.”
Elena looked at Vittorio.
The first voice continued.
“He needs to break before September.”
“Why September?”
“Board vote.”
The recording ended.
Vittorio stood.
His family corporation had a major board vote scheduled in September.
If he were declared medically incompetent, voting control would pass temporarily.
“To whom?” Elena asked.
Vittorio already knew.
“Carlo.”
Everyone stared.
“But Carlo is tied to a chair,” Elena said.
“Maybe.”
Vittorio replayed the ransom photograph.
Marco zoomed in.
Carlo’s wrists appeared bound.
Bruise real.
Fear convincing.
But Elena noticed his shoes.
Perfectly clean.
The abandoned facility floor behind him was covered in dust.
“His shoes.”
Marco enlarged the image.
No dust.
Vittorio stared.
“He walked into that room after it was cleaned.”
“Or he never walked.”
Elena pointed.
“Somebody placed him there.”
Marco looked at Vittorio.
“You think Carlo staged his kidnapping?”
“I think we’re about to find out.”
They did not bring Elena.
Officially.
Unofficially, Elena hid inside the second armored vehicle after arguing for twenty minutes.
When Vittorio discovered her halfway there, he looked ready to commit a homicide.
“You disobey badly.”
“You communicate badly.”
“You are a housekeeper.”
“And somehow your security team lost a memory card inside an apron.”
Marco coughed from the front seat.
Vittorio glared.
The abandoned facility rose from darkness at 2:14 a.m.
Security surrounded it.
Vittorio entered through the main door.
Elena remained with Marco.
Gunfire was not expected.
This was supposed to be an exchange.
Inside, emergency lamps created long shadows.
Carlo sat exactly where the photograph showed.
Dr. Kent stood beside him.
“Stop there,” Kent said.
Vittorio did.
“Release him.”
“Bring Elena.”
“She isn’t here.”
Kent smiled.
“Liar.”
Elena’s stomach dropped.
Kent looked directly toward the observation window where she stood hidden.
He could not see through mirrored glass.
Yet somehow he knew.
“Come out, Ms. Marlowe.”
Marco whispered, “Don’t.”
Kent lifted a small remote.
“If she doesn’t, Carlo dies.”
Vittorio looked toward the window.
Elena stepped out.
He looked furious.
Kent smiled.
“There she is.”
“Why do you want me?” Elena asked.
“You have something.”
“The memory card?”
“No.”
She frowned.
Kent’s smile widened.
“Something your mother gave you.”
Elena stopped breathing.
Vittorio turned.
“My mother?”
Kent tilted his head.
“You really don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“Your mother didn’t die from ordinary cancer.”
Elena’s knees weakened.
“Shut up.”
“She worked for Vale Medical Dynamics.”
“No.”
“She discovered what they were doing.”
Vittorio looked at Elena.
Her face had gone white.
Kent continued.
“Your mother hid the original research files before Vittorio’s father could destroy them.”
“No.”
“You were hired here because someone wanted you close to this house.”
Elena whispered, “Who?”
Kent looked toward Carlo.
Carlo slowly raised his head.
His fear disappeared.
Then, calmly, he slipped one hand free from the rope.
Vittorio stared.
Carlo stood.
May you like
And smiled.
“You finally asked the right question.”
