Chapter 4 - THE PRICE OF SURVIVING
Maren reacted before fear could freeze her.
She drove her elbow backward.
It struck fabric, then bone.
The man cursed and grabbed the back of her wheelchair.
Maren slammed her palm against the control panel and sent the chair forward at full speed.
The man lost his grip.
A flashlight beam sliced through the darkness.
Dana shouted.
“Down!”
Two suppressed gunshots cracked through the underground room.
Something heavy fell behind Maren.
Evelyn seized the wheelchair and pulled it behind the metal desk.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
“Stay down.”
More shots came from the staircase.
Dana’s team returned fire.
Sparks burst from the concrete wall. One of the portable lights above toppled into the opening, briefly illuminating the attacker lying near the shelves.
He wore black clothing and a tactical mask.
Blood spread beneath his shoulder.
Maren could not see his face.
A security officer dragged him behind cover and ripped away the mask.
The man appeared to be in his thirties.
No one Maren recognized.
Dana checked his neck.
“Alive.”
“Ask him where Reed is,” Evelyn said.
“He won’t be answering anything until he reaches a hospital.”
A vehicle engine roared outside.
Dana ran toward the stairs.
By the time the team reached the surface, the black SUV was racing across the abandoned property.
One security vehicle pursued it.
Another remained behind.
Maren was brought outside while Evelyn examined the surrounding darkness.
“You knew this was a trap,” Maren said.
“I suspected.”
“And you brought me anyway.”
“You refused to stay.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Evelyn turned.
“No. I did not know there would be an armed team waiting.”
“But Reed knew we would come.”
“Yes.”
“He wanted us underground.”
“Possibly.”
“Why?”
Dana approached carrying a clear evidence bag.
Inside was a small electronic device.
“Signal blocker,” she said. “It disabled our radios and the underground lighting.”
“Could it interfere with the security feed?” Maren asked.
“Yes.”
“Then the video showing Reed could have been recorded earlier.”
Dana nodded.
“Or manipulated.”
Maren looked toward the greenhouse foundation.
“He wanted us to believe he had the ledger.”
Thomas Hale emerged from the armored vehicle.
He had remained outside during the search, claiming he needed to coordinate with police and prosecutors.
“You should return to the safe house,” he said.
Maren studied him.
“Why didn’t you come underground?”
“I’m sixty-eight years old, and the access lift was barely large enough for your chair.”
“You walked me down the aisle without complaining about your knees.”
Thomas’s expression barely changed.
But Evelyn noticed the accusation.
“Maren,” she said quietly.
“The attacker knew exactly when the lights would go out,” Maren continued. “He knew where I would be sitting.”
Dana looked at Thomas.
“You had access to the vehicle tracking system.”
Thomas gave a tired sigh.
“So did twelve members of the security staff.”
“You also knew about the greenhouse,” Maren said.
“I helped your father purchase the property.”
“And Reed’s legal team convinced a district attorney to release him within hours. A district attorney who worked at your firm before entering public office.”
Thomas’s jaw tightened.
“Miles Grant was an associate at my firm for eleven months, twenty-four years ago.”
“You forgot to mention that.”
“It was irrelevant.”
“Nothing is irrelevant anymore.”
Evelyn stepped between them.
“Enough. Accusing one another in an open field is exactly what Reed wants.”
Maren held Thomas’s gaze.
“I’m not accusing him.”
Thomas looked almost relieved.
“Not yet,” she added.
The pursuit vehicle returned twenty minutes later.
The SUV had been abandoned near the highway. The occupants escaped in a second vehicle.
Inside the SUV, security officers found weapons, false license plates, and a tablet displaying live medical data from Maren’s hospital room.
Someone had gained access to the hospital network.
Dana immediately ordered a review of everyone connected to Maren’s care.
By noon, they were back at the mountain safe house.
Maren’s condition had worsened from the exertion. Her oxygen levels fell, and the doctor ordered her to bed.
She refused until Dana provided an update.
“The attacker is in surgery,” Dana said. “No identification. His fingerprints were chemically damaged.”
“Military?”
“Possibly former military or private contractor.”
“Connected to my mother?”
Evelyn looked offended.
“I do not hire assassins.”
“You hire armed men who open private doors.”
“To protect people.”
“Sometimes protection and violence wear the same suit.”
Dana placed another folder on the bed.
“We recovered data from the SUV tablet. Someone had been monitoring your medications for at least six months.”
Maren opened the folder.
It contained charts, prescription records, and notes from physical therapy appointments.
One page had been marked with a yellow tab.
“What is this?”
“A neurological evaluation performed two years after your accident.”
“I never had an evaluation then.”
“You did.”
Maren looked up.
“The examination was conducted while you were sedated for a minor surgical procedure.”
“Who authorized it?”
“Reed.”
The words on the report seemed to blur.
Maren forced herself to read.
Patient demonstrates incomplete rather than complete spinal cord damage. Additional rehabilitation and surgical consultation recommended.
Her breath stopped.
“That contradicts everything Cross told me.”
“Yes,” Dana said.
Maren turned the page.
A second document contained a rejection letter for an experimental nerve reconstruction program in Switzerland.
The letter was addressed to Maren.
She had never seen it.
Across the bottom, someone had written:
PATIENT DECLINES FURTHER INTERVENTION.
The signature resembled hers.
It was not hers.
“Reed refused treatment for me.”
“He signed using medical power of attorney,” Dana said.
“I never gave him medical power of attorney.”
Thomas spoke from the doorway.
“You signed a temporary authorization after the accident.”
“Temporary.”
“He submitted an amended version.”
Maren’s hands began shaking.
“How long did you know?”
Thomas hesitated.
“How long?”
“I discovered the amended document six weeks ago.”
Maren threw the folder.
Pages scattered across the floor.
“You knew!”
“I needed proof that Reed had forged it.”
“You had proof! You were holding it!”
“A copy is not always sufficient in court.”
“I am not a court case!”
The room fell silent.
Pain moved through Maren’s throat as she shouted, but she did not care.
“You all keep collecting evidence while he takes pieces of my life. My company. My body. My marriage. Fifteen years with my mother. Seven years believing I would never stand again.”
Evelyn moved toward her.
Maren raised a hand.
“Don’t.”
Evelyn stopped.
Maren looked at each of them.
“You watched.”
“No,” Evelyn said. “I failed to see it soon enough.”
“That difference matters to you. It doesn’t matter to me.”
She turned her wheelchair toward the window.
Outside, rain had begun falling over the mountains.
Behind her, Thomas quietly collected the scattered pages.
Dana’s phone rang.
She answered, listened, and turned toward Evelyn.
“The attacker regained consciousness.”
“Can he speak?”
“He said one word before the doctors sedated him.”
“What word?”
Dana looked at Maren.
“Celeste.”
Maren’s anger paused.
“What about her?”
“We don’t know.”
Dana made another call to the officers assigned to the county detention center.
No one answered.
She tried again.
Still nothing.
Ten minutes later, a sheriff’s supervisor confirmed that Celeste was no longer inside the detention facility.
Her attorney had produced a court order authorizing temporary release for medical evaluation.
The judge’s signature was forged.
The transport officers were missing.
“Reed took her,” Maren said.
“Or she went willingly,” Thomas replied.
Maren looked at him.
“You always assume the worst about Celeste.”
“She tried to help murder you.”
“She also spent fifteen years believing our mother was dead.”
Evelyn flinched.
Maren noticed.
“Did Celeste know any of this?”
“No.”
“You protected me by watching me. How did you protect her?”
Evelyn said nothing.
Maren understood.
“You didn’t.”
“Celeste was moved between schools and residences,” Evelyn said. “I arranged financial support.”
“You sent money.”
“I kept her away from the company.”
“You abandoned her differently.”
“Maren—”
“No wonder Reed reached her.”
Evelyn’s eyes filled with pain, but Maren was too angry to soften the truth.
A security officer entered carrying a package.
“It was delivered to the lower gate by a courier. No return address.”
Dana examined it before opening.
Inside was Celeste’s red wineglass from the mansion.
The stem was still stained with dried wine.
Wrapped around it was a strip of silk cut from the robe she had been wearing.
Beneath the glass lay a phone.
It began ringing.
Dana placed it on the table and activated the speaker.
Reed’s voice filled the room.
“Hello, Maren.”
Every muscle in her body tightened.
“Where is she?”
“You’re worried about Celeste now? That’s touching.”
“Let me speak to her.”
A sound came through the speaker.
A woman breathing unevenly.
Then Celeste whispered.
“Maren?”
Maren closed her eyes.
“I’m here.”
“I didn’t know about the accident.”
Reed struck something near the phone.
Celeste cried out.
Evelyn moved closer, fury transforming her face.
“What do you want?” Maren asked.
“The frozen accounts restored.”
“No.”
“You haven’t heard the second condition.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will.”
Reed’s voice became almost gentle.
“Your sister kept copies of our conversations. She believed they were insurance against me. Some of those recordings describe your poisoning.”
“Then they’ll put you in prison.”
“They also make Celeste sound like the person who planned it.”
Maren’s hand tightened on the armrest.
“She suggested the method. She purchased the oil. She removed the injectors.”
Celeste began crying.
“He made me—”
Reed silenced her.
“Legally, your sister is facing attempted murder. Unless the recordings disappear.”
“You’re threatening to expose your own crime?”
“I’m offering you a choice.”
“What choice?”
“Restore the accounts and publicly state that your reaction was accidental.”
Maren almost laughed.
“You think I’ll protect you?”
“No.”
Reed paused.
“I think you’ll protect Celeste.”
A photograph arrived on the phone Dana was holding.
Celeste sat tied to a chair inside a concrete room.
Behind her was a digital clock counting down from six hours.
Reed spoke again.
“You have until midnight.”
The line went dead.
Dana immediately began tracing the signal.
Maren stared at the photograph.
On the wall behind Celeste was a faded medical logo.
A blue circle surrounding the outline of a bird.
Maren recognized it.
“That’s Saint Catherine Rehabilitation Center.”
Thomas frowned.
“It closed years ago.”
“It’s where Dr. Cross first evaluated me after the crash.”
Dana was already issuing orders.
Maren turned toward the door.
Her doctor stepped into her path.
“You are not going anywhere.”
Maren looked down at the forged medical report lying on the floor.
For seven years, Reed had made decisions about her body.
He had decided what treatment she received.
What future she believed possible.
Whether she lived through dinner.
That ended now.
“Prepare the vehicle,” Maren said.
Evelyn reached for her jacket.
Thomas blocked the doorway.
“This could be another trap.”
Maren faced him.
“Then Reed is about to learn something important.”
“What?”
May you like
Maren picked up the report proving her injury had been misrepresented.
“He poisoned the wrong woman.”
