Chapter 3 - The Locked West Wing
Marcus spun toward the voice.
His gun rose.
“Show yourself.”
A man stepped from behind a half-open doorway.
He was thin, bruised, and wearing a torn security uniform.
Victor Hale.
Norah stared.
“You’re alive.”
“Barely.”
Marcus kept his weapon aimed at him.
“Hands where I can see them.”
Hale raised both hands.
“The phone is wired to an alert system.”
Norah looked down at Eli’s name flashing on the screen.
“What does that mean?”
“If you answer, whoever controls this place knows we found the room.”
The phone stopped ringing.
Norah’s heart pounded.
“Was that really my brother?”
“I don’t know.”
Marcus approached Hale.
“You disappeared.”
“I was taken.”
“By whom?”
Hale looked toward the guards behind Marcus.
His eyes showed panic.
“I won’t talk in front of everyone.”
Marcus’s expression turned dangerous.
“These men work for me.”
“That’s the problem.”
Silence.
Marcus looked at his own men.
Norah understood immediately.
If someone had infiltrated Gideon’s security operation deeply enough to erase cameras, hide Angela’s body, and abduct Hale, loyalty could not be assumed.
Marcus dismissed the other guards to the corridor.
Then he closed the door.
“Talk.”
Hale lowered his voice.
“Adrian is involved, but he isn’t controlling this.”
“We know.”
“You don’t know enough.”
Norah stared at the surrounding room.
Old furniture covered in sheets.
Dust everywhere.
Except one narrow track across the floor.
Something heavy had been moved repeatedly.
She followed the marks toward a bookcase.
“Hale.”
He looked at her.
“What’s behind this?”
His face changed.
Marcus noticed.
“Move it.”
They shifted the bookcase.
A steel door appeared.
Norah stared.
She had cleaned this estate for almost a year.
She had never known the room existed.
Marcus entered an access code.
Denied.
Hale gave him another.
The lock clicked.
Inside was not a bedroom.
It was a surveillance room.
Dozens of screens.
Stacks of documents.
Encrypted radios.
Photographs.
Norah’s face.
Her apartment.
Eli’s school.
Angela.
Dr. Kessler’s daughter.
Even Gideon asleep in his hospital bed.
Someone had been watching all of them.
Norah stepped toward one photograph.
It showed her outside a grocery store eight months earlier.
Before she had started working at the estate.
“What is this?”
Hale looked ashamed.
“You weren’t hired by accident.”
Norah turned.
“What?”
“Your application was flagged before you ever entered the house.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not possible.”
“I’m telling you what I saw.”
Marcus said, “Why her?”
Hale looked toward Norah.
“Her mother.”
Norah’s throat tightened.
“My mother was a receptionist.”
Hale shook his head.
“Before that.”
“She worked at a hotel.”
“What hotel?”
“The Marbury.”
Gideon owned the Marbury Group.
Norah went still.
“My mother worked for Gideon?”
“Not directly.”
Hale opened a drawer and removed an old employee file.
NORMA BLAKE.
Norah’s hands trembled as she opened it.
Her mother’s photograph was clipped to the first page.
Twenty-three years younger.
Smiling.
Job title:
Accounts Assistant.
Wolf Maritime Holdings.
Norah stared.
“My mother never told me this.”
Marcus asked, “How long was she there?”
“Four years.”
Hale pointed to the termination date.
Twenty-one years ago.
Norah had been six.
“Why does this matter now?”
Hale opened another folder.
Inside were bank statements.
Invoices.
Cargo manifests.
Then a photocopy of a handwritten note.
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, G.W. MUST KNOW.
Norah recognized the handwriting immediately.
Her mother’s.
She felt the room tilt.
“What did she know?”
Hale swallowed.
“She discovered money disappearing through one of Gideon’s old shipping companies.”
“How much?”
“Millions.”
Marcus asked, “Who was taking it?”
Hale hesitated.
“Gideon’s father.”
Norah looked up.
“His father?”
“And someone else.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Hale sat down slowly, exhaustion overtaking him.
“Years later, whoever continued that operation learned Norma had kept copies of financial records. They searched for them after she died.”
Norah thought of her mother’s tiny apartment.
Boxes.
Receipts.
Old photographs.
A locked sewing chest Norah had donated without opening.
Her stomach dropped.
“My mother died six months before I got this job.”
Hale nodded.
“And within weeks, your application arrived.”
“I applied because there was an opening.”
“There wasn’t.”
Norah stared.
“What?”
“The listing was created specifically where you would see it.”
Marcus whispered a curse.
Someone had brought Norah into the Wolf estate deliberately.
Maybe to watch her.
Maybe to search her belongings.
Maybe because they believed she possessed something her mother had hidden.
Norah suddenly remembered Angela asking about the service cameras.
What if Angela had discovered the surveillance room?
What if that was why she died?
“Hale, why were you taken?”
“I found this room.”
“Who attacked you?”
“Masked men.”
“How did you escape?”
“They left me tied in an old storage space. I cut the restraints on a broken vent.”
Marcus remained skeptical.
“Convenient.”
Hale looked at him.
“You want proof?”
He pulled up his shirt.
Deep bruises covered his ribs.
Norah looked away.
Marcus did not.
“Who else knows about this room?”
“Whoever built it.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I don’t have one.”
Norah studied the monitors.
One screen showed Gideon’s medical suite live.
Another showed the main kitchen.
Another showed the front gate.
Then she noticed one camera feed labeled B7.
The image showed a dim basement chamber.
A woman sat tied to a chair.
Dr. Kessler’s daughter.
Beside her stood Adrian Wolf.
Marcus moved closer.
“He’s here.”
Hale looked shocked.
“Where is that room?”
“Lower utility level.”
Marcus grabbed his radio.
Then stopped.
If the radios were compromised, calling for backup could alert Adrian.
Norah pointed at the screen.
“Look.”
Adrian was speaking to someone outside camera view.
A hand entered the frame.
Older.
Male.
A gold signet ring.
Marcus’s face changed.
Norah asked, “You recognize it?”
He did not answer.
“Marcus.”
He stared at the ring.
“There were three of those made.”
“For who?”
“Gideon.”
“Adrian?”
Marcus nodded.
“And the third?”
Marcus looked at her.
“Their uncle.”
Lucian Wolf had supposedly died seven years ago.
Norah had heard the story from kitchen staff.
Heart attack.
Private funeral.
No public viewing.
Gideon had taken control of the remaining family businesses afterward.
Norah whispered, “You think he’s alive?”
Marcus’s face gave no reassurance.
On the monitor, Adrian stepped aside.
The older man finally entered the frame.
Silver hair.
Tall posture.
A scar along his left cheek.
Marcus went completely still.
“That’s Lucian.”
The dead man was standing in Gideon’s basement.
And he was smiling.
They could not hear the conversation, but Lucian pointed toward Kessler’s daughter.
Adrian shook his head.
Lucian struck him.
Norah flinched.
Marcus said, “Adrian isn’t in charge.”
“No,” Hale whispered.
“He never was.”
They watched as Lucian handed Adrian a syringe.
The same type found in Kessler’s coat.
Norah felt sick.
“What are they making him do?”
Marcus answered.
“Finish the job.”
They had to get back to Gideon.
Marcus turned toward the door.
Before anyone moved, every monitor in the room went black.
Then one screen turned on again.
A live camera showed Gideon in his bed.
Alone.
The doctors were gone.
The guards were gone.
A figure entered the room wearing medical scrubs.
Norah leaned closer.
The figure removed a surgical mask.
Angela.
The nurse everyone believed was dead.
Norah’s breath caught.
“That’s impossible.”
Angela walked toward Gideon’s IV line.
She raised a syringe.
Norah ran.
They tore through the west wing.
Marcus shouted into his radio despite the risk.
“Medical suite! Lock it now!”
Static.
No response.
They reached the main corridor.
Norah’s lungs burned.
The suite was one floor above.
Marcus took the stairs two at a time.
When they reached the door, it stood partly open.
The heart monitor alarm screamed inside.
Norah pushed past Marcus.
Gideon’s bed was empty.
The IV line lay on the floor.
A single drop of blood marked the sheet.
On the bedside table sat the red glass.
This time, a folded note was beneath it.
Marcus opened it.
Three words.
COME GET HIM.
Then footsteps sounded in the corridor behind them.
Slow.
Deliberate.
A man’s voice said:
“Norah Blake.”
May you like
She turned.
And saw the last person she expected to be alive.
