Chapter 4 - The Name Behind the Orders
"Bring my brother inside."
Gideon spoke calmly.
Too calmly.
Norah had learned that his quietest voice usually appeared when he was angriest.
Sebastian entered twenty minutes later.
He was thirty-four, leaner than Gideon, clean-shaven, dressed in a charcoal suit that looked untouched by travel.
Dr. Voss walked beside him.
Not restrained.
Not injured.
Norah looked from one man to the other.
"You weren't a prisoner," Gideon said.
Voss shook his head.
"No."
Luca's hand remained near his jacket.
Sebastian smiled.
"Good to see you too, brother."
Gideon ignored him.
"Explain."
Sebastian placed the folder on the table.
"Voss contacted me four days ago."
"Why?"
"Because he found something he didn't want transmitted through your estate network."
Voss opened the folder.
Inside were laboratory results.
The genetic test had revealed that Gideon possessed a metabolic variation affecting how his body processed certain medications.
Not enough to make him sick by itself.
But enough to make specific interactions more dangerous.
"Your mother's archived blood sample showed the same variation," Voss said.
Gideon stared at him.
"You tested my dead mother's blood?"
"A preserved sample existed at her former hospital."
"Without telling me."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because eleven years ago I was a resident who briefly reviewed her case."
The room went silent.
Voss continued.
"I questioned the supplement regimen. My supervisor dismissed me. Two days later, Mrs. Wolf died."
Gideon's eyes hardened.
"You knew my mother?"
"I met her once."
"And you waited eleven years?"
"I had suspicion. No evidence."
Voss looked toward Norah.
"Until the same pattern appeared again."
Norah finally understood his hostility.
"You knew the grapefruit mattered."
"Not until you lifted the glass."
"Then why treat me like an idiot?"
Voss looked ashamed.
"Because you embarrassed me."
It was so unexpectedly human that Norah almost laughed.
He continued.
"And because once you identified the interaction, I became afraid whoever was manipulating Gideon's treatment would realize we were looking beyond disease."
Sebastian opened another document.
"This is why I came."
It showed unauthorized access to Gideon's medical portal.
The account belonged to Sebastian.
But the login originated inside the estate.
"Someone used my credentials," he said.
"Convenient," Gideon replied.
"Very."
"Why should I believe you?"
"You shouldn't."
Sebastian pulled out his phone.
"You should believe evidence."
He had spent the flight tracing the account access through Wolf Holdings' cybersecurity team.
The administrator override had been created through Adrian Cross's department.
Again, Adrian.
Too obvious.
Norah looked at the paperwork.
"When was the override created?"
"Eight months ago," Sebastian said.
"When did Gideon get sick?"
"Three weeks ago."
"Then why create access eight months earlier?"
Sebastian smiled faintly.
"That's exactly the question Voss asked."
The answer came from Elena's old records.
Eight months earlier, Gideon had authorized a forensic audit of Wolf Holdings.
The audit was scheduled to conclude the following month.
Someone stealing from the company had a reason to fear it.
Gideon's illness would delay the audit.
His death could bury it entirely.
"How much money?" Norah asked.
Sebastian looked at Gideon.
"At least eighty-six million dollars."
Even Gideon reacted.
Luca swore softly.
The theft had been spread across shell vendors, consulting contracts, property maintenance, food suppliers, and medical-service invoices.
Halcyon Specialty Foods was only one piece.
"Adrian controlled all of it," Gideon said.
"He controlled the department," Sebastian replied. "That doesn't prove he stole the money."
"Then who?"
Nobody knew.
They needed Adrian alive.
They also needed to understand why Norah had been framed.
Luca pulled her employment file.
She had been hired eleven months earlier.
Nothing unusual.
Then Norah saw the signature approving her employment.
Adrian Cross.
"I never met him."
Luca frowned.
"He approved your hire."
"Why?"
Mrs. Calder answered.
"Because HR initially rejected you."
Norah stared.
"What?"
"You didn't meet one of the estate's experience requirements. I appealed."
"And Adrian approved it?"
"Yes."
Norah felt suddenly exposed.
Had she been placed there intentionally?
She thought about her mother's medical history.
Her knowledge of medication labels.
Could somebody have known?
No.
That seemed impossible.
Unless—
"My mother."
Gideon looked at her.
"What about her?"
"She worked before she got sick."
"Where?"
"St. Catherine's Hospital."
Voss went pale.
"What department?"
"Medical records."
Voss stood.
"Your mother's name?"
"Rebecca Blake."
He knew it.
Norah saw that immediately.
"Tell me."
Voss walked to the window.
"Rebecca Blake was the clerk who helped me locate Elena Wolf's missing laboratory request eleven years ago."
Norah couldn't speak.
Her mother had never mentioned Gideon.
Never mentioned Elena.
"Why?"
"She thought somebody was altering records."
Norah's knees weakened.
Gideon gestured toward the chair.
She sat.
Voss continued.
"After Elena died, your mother contacted me once. She said copies existed."
"What copies?"
"Medical records."
"Where?"
"She never told me."
Norah remembered boxes.
After Rebecca died, Norah had packed everything into a rented storage unit because she couldn't bear to sort through it.
Old papers.
Photographs.
Work files her mother probably should not have kept.
Gideon saw the answer on her face.
"You have them."
"I might."
The storage facility was forty minutes away.
Gideon wanted Luca to go.
Norah refused.
"They're my mother's things."
"Then you're definitely not going."
"They won't know what they're looking for."
"Neither will you."
"I'll recognize her handwriting."
Gideon stared at her.
Norah stared back.
Sebastian laughed quietly.
"She's not afraid of you at all."
"She claims she is."
"I am," Norah said.
Sebastian grinned.
"I like her."
Gideon did not.
At least not that sentence.
Eventually they compromised.
Norah would go with Luca and four security officers.
Gideon remained at the estate.
Before she left, he called her back.
"Norah."
She turned.
"Be careful."
Something in his voice had changed.
For the first time, he wasn't speaking to an employee.
He was speaking to someone whose return mattered.
The realization unsettled her more than she wanted to admit.
The storage facility looked undisturbed.
Norah unlocked unit 314.
Her mother's life waited inside cardboard boxes.
They searched for almost an hour.
Nothing.
Then Norah found Rebecca's old nursing-school textbook.
Her mother had never become a nurse.
She had dropped out when Norah was born.
Inside the back cover was an envelope.
ELENA W.
Norah's hands trembled.
Inside were copies of laboratory requests, medication lists, and one handwritten note.
A name appeared repeatedly.
Dr. Leonard Mercer.
Voss's former supervisor.
The physician who had dismissed his concerns.
Norah called Voss.
"Where is Mercer now?"
Silence.
Then Voss answered.
"Retired."
"From medicine?"
"Yes."
"Where does he live?"
Another pause.
"Norah, come back to the estate."
"Why?"
"Because Leonard Mercer isn't just my former supervisor."
She waited.
"He is Adrian Cross's father-in-law."
Norah looked at Luca.
There it was.
A connection.
Not proof.
But a connection.
Then Luca noticed something.
The dust near the storage-unit entrance had been disturbed.
A shoe print.
Fresh.
They weren't alone.
He ordered Norah behind him.
Security spread out.
A metal door slammed somewhere in the corridor.
One guard ran toward it.
Norah clutched her mother's envelope.
Then her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
"Hello?"
A man's voice whispered:
"Your mother should have burned those papers."
Norah stopped breathing.
"Who is this?"
"Leave them where you found them."
"Why?"
"Because Rebecca Blake made the same mistake you're making."
The call ended.
Luca took the phone.
Norah stared at him.
"My mother didn't just get sick."
The thought had been growing for hours.
Now she couldn't stop it.
"What if someone did to her what they did to Elena?"
Luca didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
They hurried toward the exit.
Then every light in the storage facility went dark.
Emergency illumination flickered red.
A door opened at the far end.
Footsteps approached.
Luca raised his weapon.
"Stay behind me."
The footsteps stopped.
A phone began ringing on the concrete floor ahead of them.
Not Norah's.
Not Luca's.
One of the guards picked it up.
The screen showed a live video feed.
Gideon's bedroom.
Norah stepped closer.
Gideon's bed was empty.
The monitor leads hung loose.
The IV line had been disconnected.
And someone had left one object on his pillow.
May you like
Norah recognized it immediately.
Her mother's old hospital identification badge.
