Chapter 5 - THE PLACE WHERE HOPE WAS BURIED
Saint Catherine Rehabilitation Center stood behind a rusted fence twelve miles outside the city.
The facility had once been considered one of the best private rehabilitation hospitals in North Carolina. Wealthy patients traveled from across the country to receive spinal therapy there.
Then a financial scandal shut it down.
Maren had never questioned why.
Now she wondered how many questions Reed had trained her not to ask.
Rain struck the armored vehicle as it approached the service road.
Dana examined satellite images on a tablet.
“The main gate is chained. There are three accessible entrances and at least two underground utility tunnels.”
“Any vehicles?” Evelyn asked.
“One cargo van behind the east wing.”
“Heat signatures?”
“Four in the central building. Possibly five.”
Thomas remained at the safe house under guard.
He had objected until Evelyn informed him that anyone with access to the family security network would be temporarily isolated.
Maren had expected him to be angry.
Instead, he had looked wounded.
That troubled her more.
The convoy stopped half a mile from the facility.
Dana divided the security officers into teams.
“You stay inside the vehicle,” she told Maren.
“No.”
“You nearly died yesterday.”
“My sister is in there because of me.”
“Your sister is in there because she participated in an attempted murder.”
“She is still my sister.”
Evelyn opened the vehicle door.
“She stays between us.”
Dana gave her an incredulous look.
“You cannot protect someone while conducting a rescue operation.”
Evelyn checked the ammunition in her pistol.
“Watch me.”
They entered through the former therapy wing.
Broken glass covered the floor. Wheelchairs and medical equipment had been abandoned in the hallways, coated in years of dust.
Maren’s tires rolled over old patient forms and faded brochures.
On the walls, motivational posters promised recovery through courage.
One showed a man standing beside a mountain beneath the words:
YOUR FUTURE BEGINS WITH ONE STEP.
Maren stopped looking at them.
A security officer cut power to the building.
Emergency lights flickered on, bathing the hallway in red.
Dana raised two fingers.
Movement ahead.
The team advanced.
They found the first man near the nurses’ station. He reached for a weapon but was taken down before he could fire.
The second attacker fled through a therapy room.
Two officers pursued him.
Maren heard a crash, a shout, then silence.
“Clear,” someone called.
They continued toward the central treatment building.
The digital clock in Celeste’s photograph had shown six hours.
Only ninety minutes remained.
At the end of the corridor, Maren noticed a room number.
Memory came without warning.
She was lying inside that room after the crash.
Her legs felt distant and heavy.
Dr. Adrian Cross stood beside the window holding a scan.
Reed sat near the bed.
Maren could not hear every word because of the medication, but she remembered Cross saying:
There is some response below the injury.
Reed had stood and closed the door.
Later, Cross told her she had imagined the conversation.
Maren stopped her wheelchair.
“What is it?” Evelyn asked.
“I was treated in this room.”
The door was locked.
Dana forced it open.
Inside, the room had been cleaned more recently than the rest of the facility.
A portable generator powered several computer screens.
Medical files covered a table.
All of them bore Maren’s name.
Dana photographed everything.
Evelyn opened a metal cabinet.
Inside were bottles of medication, old scans, and a video camera.
Maren wheeled closer to the largest monitor.
A paused video showed her unconscious in a hospital bed.
The date was three days after her accident.
“Play it,” she said.
Dana checked the system for external connections, then started the recording.
Dr. Cross entered the image.
A younger Reed followed him.
Cross held an X-ray toward the light.
“She has incomplete thoracic damage. There’s swelling, but the cord is not fully severed.”
Reed’s voice came from off camera.
“What are the chances she walks again?”
“With aggressive intervention? Twenty to thirty percent. Possibly better with future procedures.”
“That isn’t low enough.”
Cross lowered the X-ray.
“What do you mean?”
“She needs to remain dependent.”
Maren felt the air leave her lungs.
On the screen, Cross looked toward the unconscious woman in the bed.
“You said the crash would kill her.”
Evelyn gripped the back of Maren’s wheelchair.
Reed answered.
“The barrier was reinforced last month. I wasn’t informed.”
“Then try again.”
“No. Her survival is useful.”
“How?”
“People trust a devoted man caring for an injured fiancée. Her board trusts me. Her foundation trusts me. In time, she will sign whatever I place in front of her.”
Cross turned off the X-ray light.
“And if she improves?”
“She won’t.”
The video ended.
No one spoke.
Rain rattled against the broken windows.
Maren stared at her own unconscious face frozen on the monitor.
She remembered Reed feeding her soup when her hands shook.
Reed lifting her into bed.
Reed telling reporters that disability had deepened their love.
Every tender moment had been another room in the prison he built.
Evelyn knelt beside her.
“Maren.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He cut my brakes.”
“Yes.”
“He knew I might survive.”
“Yes.”
“And then he stole the possibility of recovery.”
Evelyn’s voice trembled.
“Yes.”
Maren closed her eyes.
She wanted to scream.
Instead, she saved the video to three separate drives.
“He doesn’t get to erase this.”
Dana’s radio clicked.
“We found the central room.”
The team moved deeper into the facility.
A steel door blocked the basement stairwell.
Wires ran from the frame to a crude explosive device.
Dana examined it.
“Pressure trigger. If we force the door, it detonates.”
“Can you disable it?” Evelyn asked.
“Yes, but it will take time.”
“We don’t have time,” Maren said.
The digital clock had less than forty minutes remaining.
Maren studied the hallway.
During her rehabilitation, staff had used service elevators to transport patients between therapy floors.
She remembered one near the hydrotherapy pool.
“This way.”
They followed her through a wide chamber containing an empty swimming pool.
At the far end, behind a collapsed privacy screen, was an elevator door.
The power was dead, but the maintenance hatch could be opened manually.
Dana sent two officers down the shaft.
They reached the basement without triggering the explosive.
Maren and Evelyn followed in a cargo sling designed for emergency evacuation.
The basement smelled of mold and chemicals.
At the end of a narrow corridor, light spilled beneath a door.
Celeste’s voice came from inside.
“Please, I did what you asked.”
A man answered.
“You talked too much.”
Maren recognized him as one of Reed’s former private security contractors.
Dana signaled the team.
They breached the room.
The man fired once.
Evelyn pulled Maren behind the wall.
Security officers returned fire.
The attacker fell beside the table.
Celeste sat tied to a metal chair.
A device beneath her seat displayed eight minutes.
Dana approached carefully.
“Don’t move.”
Celeste was crying so hard she could barely breathe.
“Maren.”
“I’m here.”
“He said you wouldn’t come.”
“He was wrong.”
“He always said you would choose the company over me.”
Maren looked at the bomb beneath the chair.
“Stop talking.”
Dana removed the outer panel.
“This isn’t a timer.”
“What is it?” Evelyn asked.
“Remote trigger.”
A red light began blinking.
“Signal detected.”
Dana cut one wire.
Nothing happened.
She cut a second.
The digital numbers disappeared.
Celeste collapsed forward, sobbing.
An officer untied her and searched the chair.
Maren approached slowly.
Celeste’s face was bruised. Her wrists were bleeding from the restraints.
She looked smaller than she had in the mansion.
Not innocent.
But no longer untouchable.
“I’m sorry,” Celeste whispered.
Maren stopped several feet away.
“Did you remove my EpiPens?”
Celeste lowered her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Did you buy the peanut oil?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know he caused my accident?”
“No.”
“Did you want me dead?”
Celeste’s lips trembled.
“I wanted your life.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
A long silence passed.
“At first,” Celeste said, “I told myself we only needed you unconscious. Reed said he would make it look like an accident and take control of the company while you recovered.”
“You knew about the allergy.”
“Yes.”
“You knew what would happen.”
“I didn’t let myself think about it.”
“That is not the same as not knowing.”
Celeste began crying again.
Maren felt nothing.
Not yet.
Dana searched the attacker’s pockets.
She removed a phone and checked the most recent call.
“Reed contacted him twelve minutes ago.”
“Can you trace it?”
“Already trying.”
The phone suddenly displayed an incoming video.
Dana answered without speaking.
Reed appeared on the screen.
He was sitting inside Maren’s office at Whitaker Medical Holdings.
Behind him, the city skyline glowed through tall windows.
“Congratulations,” he said. “You saved her.”
Maren moved into view.
Reed smiled.
“There she is.”
“You should have left the country.”
“And miss the emergency board meeting?”
“What meeting?”
Reed held up a legal document.
“The board is voting tomorrow morning to remove you as chief executive.”
“On what grounds?”
“Medical incapacity, emotional instability, and misuse of corporate security assets.”
Maren almost admired the arrogance.
“You tried to kill me.”
“That is an accusation made by a heavily medicated woman after a traumatic allergic reaction.”
“We found the video.”
For the first time, Reed’s smile weakened.
“What video?”
“You and Dr. Cross discussing my accident.”
His eyes changed.
Only for a second.
It was enough.
“You’re lying,” he said.
“Come to the board meeting and find out.”
Reed leaned back in her chair.
“I intend to.”
The video ended.
Dana examined the call trace.
“He routed it through several networks.”
“Where is he?” Evelyn asked.
Dana enlarged a map.
The final signal appeared inside Whitaker Medical’s headquarters.
“He may actually be there.”
Maren looked at Celeste.
“Can he access the executive floor?”
“With my security credential,” Celeste whispered.
“Where is it?”
“He took it.”
Maren turned toward Evelyn.
The woman who had built a secret empire waited for her daughter’s decision.
“Reed thinks tomorrow is about removing me from the company,” Maren said.
“What is it really about?” Evelyn asked.
Maren looked at the video drive in her hand.
“Removing him from my life.”
Behind them, Celeste began coughing.
At first, no one reacted.
Then she collapsed sideways.
Foam appeared at the corner of her mouth.
Dana reached her first.
“Poison.”
Maren stared at the attacker’s body.
“He expected us to rescue her.”
Evelyn searched the room.
“Where is it coming from?”
Dana examined Celeste’s bleeding wrists.
A tiny plastic needle protruded from one of the restraints.
“Delayed injection.”
Celeste’s eyes rolled back.
The nearest medical team was nearly twenty minutes away.
Maren looked at her sister’s face and remembered another dinner, another tightening throat, another empty pouch.
Reed had left them one injector.
It lay inside a clear box on the far side of the room.
May you like
Across the lid, he had written a message.
ONLY ONE SISTER GETS TO LIVE.
