Chapter 6 - The Man Inside My Gates
"Take your hand out."
Dominic stopped.
Every guard in the room looked between us.
"Vincent."
"Slowly."
He removed his phone.
Nothing else.
He placed it on the table.
"I can explain."
Those four words have ended more friendships than bullets ever could.
"Start."
Dominic admitted he'd called Elena that morning.
He'd told her I had forgotten documents at the house.
She offered to bring them.
That was why she entered the SUV.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because after the explosion, I knew."
"Knew what?"
"Someone had used me."
He'd received a message from my number asking for the documents.
I had never sent it.
Dominic had deleted the message afterward because he feared I would blame him.
He was right.
I did.
For several terrible seconds.
Then Matteo spoke.
"Not Dominic."
I looked at him.
He shook his head.
"Mom liked Dominic."
It was such a child's argument.
And somehow it mattered.
Dominic knelt.
"I'm sorry, buddy."
Matteo looked at him.
"You cried."
Dominic's face broke.
He had.
At the hospital.
When he thought nobody saw.
I remembered.
I lowered my guard.
Not completely.
Never completely.
But enough.
We traced Clara's call.
It originated from a burner phone near the estate.
Someone was still close.
Vale suggested we stop reacting and start setting a trap.
I hated taking advice from him.
I hated more that it was good advice.
We announced internally that Clara had recovered her complete memory.
False.
Then we waited.
At 1:13 a.m., someone attempted to leave through the service gate.
Security stopped the vehicle.
Lawrence Bell sat inside.
My financial manager.
My friend.
He didn't resist.
They brought him to the library.
He looked older than I'd seen him two days earlier.
"You should have left," I said.
"I tried."
"Why come here first?"
He looked at Clara.
"To see whether she remembered me."
Clara stared.
Then something returned.
Her expression changed.
"You."
Lawrence closed his eyes.
"You visited the facility."
He nodded.
"Why?"
"Money."
At least he didn't insult me with noble motives.
Lawrence had discovered the clinic network through investments.
He helped conceal financial irregularities.
Then Elena found them.
He insisted he had never intended for anyone to die.
"The bomb wasn't mine."
"Whose?"
"Keene's."
Samuel Keene had been hired to frighten Elena.
Not kill her.
Or so Lawrence claimed.
"Where is he?"
"I don't know."
"Lie again and this conversation ends."
"I'm not lying."
Lawrence leaned forward.
"Keene stopped answering me after the explosion. Then payments started moving through accounts I didn't control."
Someone else.
Always someone else.
A deeper layer.
"Who?"
Lawrence looked genuinely afraid.
"I never knew his real name."
Clara whispered, "M plus M."
Lawrence's eyes moved toward her.
There.
Recognition.
"What does it mean?"
He said nothing.
I leaned closer.
"What does M plus M mean?"
Lawrence swallowed.
"Mercer Medical."
Vale stood abruptly.
I turned.
He looked stunned.
"You know it."
Vale nodded slowly.
Mercer Medical Foundation.
The nonprofit organization that had funded several facilities.
And its chairman?
Dr. Adrian Vale.
Everyone looked at him.
Vale raised his hands.
"I founded the foundation. I didn't control those facilities."
Lawrence laughed.
"You expect him to believe that?"
Vale turned on him.
"You used my organization."
"You signed the approvals."
"Because you falsified the reports."
Their argument blurred.
I watched faces.
Lawrence angry.
Vale horrified.
Clara confused.
Dominic alert.
Matteo exhausted.
Then my son looked at me.
He pointed toward Vale.
"No."
Vale stopped.
Matteo whispered:
"Not him."
"How do you know?"
Matteo looked toward the doorway.
"Man smelled..."
He struggled.
"Smoke."
I remembered.
Samuel Keene had been a smoker.
Then something clicked.
The cameras.
The access.
The bedroom.
Keene had installed portions of our old surveillance system.
He knew the mansion.
He knew blind spots.
He knew how to enter.
Dominic's radio sounded.
"Movement. West corridor."
We turned.
A figure appeared briefly on a restored security feed.
Male.
Baseball cap.
Maintenance uniform.
Samuel Keene.
Inside my house.
"Lock down."
Doors sealed electronically.
Guards moved.
Keene disappeared from camera seven.
Appeared on nine.
Then eleven.
Heading toward—
"Matteo's room."
But Matteo was with us.
Why go there?
The hidden compartment.
Something else remained inside.
We reached the bedroom minutes later.
Keene was gone.
The panel had been ripped open.
A second compartment was exposed behind it.
Empty.
Almost.
One tiny object remained.
A memory card.
Dominic picked it up with gloves.
"We can read this downstairs."
Matteo shook his head.
"Mom."
"What?"
"Mom put it there."
My pulse jumped.
We inserted the card into an isolated computer.
One video file appeared.
Elena.
Recorded the night before she died.
She looked exhausted.
Terrified.
But alive.
"Vincent," she began, "if you're watching this, I finally know who ordered everything."
The video glitched.
Then Elena looked directly into the camera.
"The person is someone Matteo trusts."
May you like
Behind us, Matteo made a frightened sound.
Because footsteps had just stopped outside the locked bedroom door.
