Chapter 10 - THE TRUTH ABOUT REBECCA’S LAST NIGHT
Jonathan read the message three times.
ASK CHARLES WHO REALLY KILLED REBECCA.
The words made no sense.
Rebecca had died of cancer.
He had been there.
He had held her hand.
Her oncologist had explained every stage of organ failure.
There had been nothing mysterious about it.
But Charles looked terrified.
That frightened Jonathan more than the message.
“What do they mean?”
Charles said nothing.
Jonathan stepped closer.
“What do they mean?”
Annie watched from beside Agent Torres.
Charles sank into a chair.
“Rebecca was dying.”
Jonathan’s voice became cold.
“I know.”
“She had very little time.”
“I know.”
Charles rubbed both hands over his face.
“Her death was expected.”
Jonathan grabbed his jacket.
“Then why are you acting like this?”
Torres stepped between them.
“Mr. Bennett.”
Jonathan backed off.
Barely.
Charles looked up.
“The night Rebecca died, she called me.”
Jonathan froze.
“You told me you hadn’t spoken to her that week.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“She told me she had evidence against Peter and Victor.”
“The Sparrow files.”
“Yes.”
“She wanted me to take them to you.”
Jonathan’s chest tightened.
“What happened?”
“I went to the hospital.”
Jonathan remembered leaving Rebecca’s room for forty minutes that evening.
A specialist had asked him to discuss home hospice options.
Charles could have entered.
“I begged her not to expose it yet.”
“Of course you did.”
“She said she was done protecting the company.”
Jonathan’s eyes burned.
“Then?”
Charles stared at the floor.
“Victor arrived.”
“What?”
“He had been following me.”
Torres leaned forward.
“Victor Kane entered Rebecca Bennett’s hospital room?”
“Yes.”
“Was that documented?”
“No.”
“How did he get past security?”
“He was a Bennett board representative. People knew him.”
Jonathan’s hands clenched.
“What did he do?”
“They argued.”
“About?”
“The evidence.”
“Where was it?”
“Rebecca wouldn’t say.”
Jonathan remembered Rebecca being strangely agitated when he returned.
She had kept asking for her handbag.
He had thought medication was confusing her.
“What happened after I came back?”
“Victor left before you returned.”
“And you?”
“I left through the service corridor.”
Jonathan stared at him.
“So I sat beside my dying wife while my oldest friend hid in a hallway.”
Charles looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
“What does that have to do with her death?”
Charles’s breathing changed.
“Rebecca had another twelve hours according to the doctors.”
Jonathan’s entire body went cold.
“People die sooner than doctors expect.”
“Yes.”
“Charles.”
“She died forty-five minutes after Victor left.”
Silence.
Torres said carefully, “Do you have evidence of interference?”
“No.”
“Then do not speculate.”
Charles looked at Jonathan.
“I didn’t speculate then either.”
“But you do now.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Peter told me something years later.”
Jonathan’s heart pounded.
“What?”
“He said Victor had solved the Rebecca problem.”
Annie whispered, “Oh my God.”
Charles shook his head quickly.
“I thought he meant the evidence. I thought Victor found and destroyed it.”
Jonathan’s voice dropped.
“What medication was Rebecca receiving?”
Torres immediately understood.
“Jonathan.”
He looked at the agent.
“She had a central line.”
“Yes.”
“Anyone entering the room could access it.”
“We do not know that happened.”
“No.”
But the possibility had entered him.
And would never leave.
Torres contacted federal investigators.
Hospital archives were requested.
Medication records.
Security access.
Nursing notes.
Anything surviving seventeen years.
Meanwhile the midnight message remained.
Torres forbade Jonathan from going alone.
“They specifically demanded it.”
“Which is why you won’t do it.”
“If they see agents—”
“We can operate covertly.”
Annie said, “I’m going.”
Everyone answered at once.
“No.”
She crossed her arms.
“It’s my leg.”
Jonathan turned.
“Not happening.”
“You keep deciding things for me.”
“That person may have killed my wife.”
“And that leg contains evidence about my body.”
Torres intervened.
“Neither of you decides. I do.”
Annie frowned.
Torres continued.
“You’ll both remain outside the target location unless operational circumstances require otherwise.”
Jonathan almost argued.
Then didn’t.
At 11:38 p.m., they arrived near the abandoned Bennett manufacturing plant.
The facility occupied twenty acres behind chain-link fencing.
Dark windows.
Rusting loading docks.
Jonathan had closed it after automation moved production elsewhere.
Federal tactical officers entered first.
No movement.
No lights.
At 11:58, Jonathan’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
Torres nodded for him to answer.
“Jonathan Bennett.”
A distorted voice spoke.
“You brought company.”
Jonathan’s eyes moved around the dark parking lot.
“No.”
“Federal agents are terrible at hiding expensive equipment.”
Torres’s expression hardened.
The caller continued.
“Send them away.”
“That’s not happening.”
“Then A-17 loses her history.”
Annie stepped closer.
Jonathan said, “What do you want?”
“You.”
“Why?”
“Because Rebecca chose you.”
Jonathan’s chest tightened.
“Who are you?”
“Walk inside.”
Torres shook her head.
Jonathan ignored her.
“If you hurt Annie—”
“She isn’t the target.”
“What is?”
“You.”
The call ended.
Jonathan looked at Torres.
“I’m going.”
“No.”
“They know you’re here.”
“All the more reason—”
Annie spoke.
“There’s another entrance.”
Everyone turned.
She pointed toward a side road.
“My orientation packet had an old facility map. The engineering tunnel connected Building C to underground testing.”
Jonathan looked at her.
“You remember an orientation map?”
“I remember useful things.”
Torres changed strategy.
Agents moved toward the tunnel.
Jonathan and Annie remained with security.
Then a gunshot sounded from inside the building.
Everyone moved.
A second gunshot.
Torres cursed.
“Stay here!”
She ran toward the entrance.
Jonathan waited exactly five seconds.
Annie looked at him.
“You’re going, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Me too.”
“No.”
She already started walking.
They entered through a side loading area.
Emergency lights flickered.
The building smelled of dust and old machine oil.
A voice came over the PA.
“Jonathan.”
He stopped.
Annie looked upward.
“Welcome home.”
Jonathan recognized the voice now.
Not Peter.
Not Victor.
Alan Reeves.
Corporate security director.
The man who had locked the boardroom.
The man Jonathan had trusted to guard headquarters.
Jonathan whispered, “Alan.”
A light illuminated the factory floor.
Reeves stood on an elevated platform.
He held Annie’s first prosthetic.
Red stripe.
Small.
Almost heartbreaking.
Annie stopped breathing.
Jonathan looked at him.
“You’ve been working with Peter.”
Alan laughed.
“Peter worked for me more often than he realized.”
“What do you want?”
“The chip.”
“It’s inside the leg.”
“Not anymore.”
He held up a tiny data module.
Annie stepped forward.
“Give it to me.”
Alan looked at her.
“You really are Melissa’s daughter.”
“You knew my mother?”
“I knew all of them.”
Jonathan’s face hardened.
“Who are you?”
Alan smiled.
“Before corporate security, I was military intelligence liaison to Project Sparrow.”
Silence.
Jonathan finally understood the missing piece.
The defense contract.
The monitoring.
The ability to erase investigations.
“You protected Peter.”
“I protected the program.”
“You covered up Mills’s death.”
“Yes.”
The casual answer chilled Annie.
Jonathan asked, “Did Peter kill him?”
Alan smiled.
“Peter hit him.”
“With what?”
“A car.”
Annie covered her mouth.
“He staged the hiking accident afterward?”
“No. I did.”
Jonathan stared.
“And Rebecca?”
Alan’s smile faded.
“She became a liability.”
Rage exploded through Jonathan.
He stepped forward.
“Did you kill my wife?”
Alan tilted his head.
“Cancer killed Rebecca.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“She was dying.”
Jonathan’s fists clenched.
“Did you touch her IV?”
Annie whispered, “Jonathan…”
Alan did not answer.
That was worse.
Jonathan took another step.
Alan raised a gun.
“Stop.”
Jonathan stopped.
Alan looked at Annie.
“Rebecca hid the chip. Melissa moved the leg. Charles accidentally brought it back. Fascinating how people spend decades creating the outcome they fear most.”
“What’s on the chip?” Jonathan asked.
“Evidence.”
“We know.”
“No.”
Alan held it up.
“More than you know.”
Annie said, “Patient logs.”
“Yes.”
“Mills’s biometrics.”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
Alan smiled.
“Audio.”
Jonathan’s heart stopped.
“What audio?”
“Project Sparrow prototypes recorded ambient sound during diagnostic sessions.”
Annie’s eyes widened.
Alan continued.
“Your first prosthetic was in Rebecca’s hospital room the afternoon she died.”
Jonathan stared at the chip.
“Why?”
Annie suddenly remembered.
“My mother took me to see her.”
Jonathan looked at her.
“I was eight. After surgery.”
Rebecca had wanted to see Annie.
Alan nodded.
“The device captured three hours.”
Jonathan could barely speak.
“Including Victor’s visit?”
“Yes.”
“Charles?”
“Yes.”
“And you?”
Alan’s smile vanished.
Jonathan knew.
“You were there.”
Alan raised the gun.
“You ask too many questions.”
Then a voice shouted from the darkness.
“Drop it!”
Federal agents appeared.
Alan fired.
Jonathan pulled Annie down.
Gunfire exploded across the factory.
Glass shattered.
Alan ran along the upper platform.
Torres pursued.
Jonathan shielded Annie behind machinery.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
Then Annie looked at the floor.
The data chip had fallen from Alan’s hand.
It lay ten feet away.
She moved.
Jonathan grabbed her.
“Absolutely not.”
“That chip proves everything.”
“It isn’t worth dying for.”
“It is my life!”
She broke free.
Jonathan followed.
They reached the chip.
Annie grabbed it.
A gunshot struck the machine beside them.
Metal sparked.
Alan stood at the stairwell.
Bleeding from one shoulder.
Weapon raised.
He aimed at Annie.
Jonathan stepped in front of her.
Alan smiled.
“Like Rebecca.”
Then another shot sounded.
Alan’s gun fell.
Charles Whitmore stood behind him.
A pistol shook in his hands.
Alan collapsed.
Federal agents rushed forward.
Jonathan turned to Charles.
“What are you doing here?”
Charles lowered the weapon.
“Trying to do one thing right.”
Annie looked at the chip in her hand.
Torres called for medical assistance.
Alan was alive.
Barely.
Jonathan stared at the tiny memory device.
Seventeen years of secrets.
Rebecca’s final hours.
Proof of Annie’s stolen choice.
Evidence of Mills’s death.
Perhaps enough to destroy Bennett Medical.
Annie held it out to him.
Jonathan shook his head.
“No.”
“What?”
“It belongs to you.”
“My mother said to give it to someone I trust.”
Jonathan looked at her.
“Do you?”
Annie thought for a long moment.
Then she placed the chip into Agent Torres’s evidence bag.
“I trust evidence.”
Jonathan almost smiled.
Exactly what he had told her.
Torres sealed it.
The files would be analyzed under federal supervision.
But before she carried it away, Daniel connected a forensic reader long enough to confirm its integrity.
One audio folder appeared.
Hundreds of recordings.
The final file was dated the day Rebecca died.
Jonathan stared at it.
He could not move.
Annie stood beside him.
“Do you want to hear it?”
“No.”
Then he swallowed.
“Yes.”
Daniel pressed play.
Rebecca’s weak voice filled the abandoned factory.
“Victor, get out of my room.”
Jonathan closed his eyes.
Victor answered.
“You don’t understand what you’re destroying.”
“I understand perfectly.”
“You’ll destroy Jonathan.”
“No. The truth may hurt him. Your lies will destroy him.”
Jonathan’s breath broke.
Then another voice entered.
Alan Reeves.
“You should listen to Mr. Kane.”
Rebecca laughed weakly.
“Who are you?”
A pause.
Then Alan said:
“The man making sure Project Sparrow survives you.”
A rustle.
Rebecca’s breathing accelerated.
Then her voice:
“Take your hand off that line.”
Jonathan stopped breathing.
Annie grabbed his hand.
The recording continued.
A struggle.
Rebecca gasped.
Then Alan whispered:
“Your husband will think the cancer took you.”
Jonathan’s knees nearly failed.
And Rebecca’s final clear words came through the speaker.
“Jonathan will find out.”
The recording ended.
Jonathan stood frozen in the darkness.
His wife had not simply died.
May you like
She had been murdered.
And for seventeen years, the killer had worked inside Jonathan’s company.
