Chapter 5 - WHAT NERO REMEMBERED
Gideon still had the whistle.
Cora had assumed it had disappeared into some evidence box years ago.
Instead, it sat in a small locked drawer in his study beside objects connected to incidents he did not consider resolved.
Rebecca Shaw learned that twenty minutes after leaving the jail.
She arrived at the estate with an independent forensic technician.
Silas objected.
"We don't know chain of custody."
Rebecca gave him a cool look.
"I'm not presenting it at trial tomorrow. I'm looking for a lead."
Gideon unlocked the drawer.
The whistle lay inside a clear plastic bag.
Rebecca held it toward the technician.
"Test for oils, medication residue and prints if any remain."
Silas leaned against the desk.
"After two years?"
"We don't need miracles," Rebecca said.
"We need connections."
The first real connection came from a place nobody expected.
Mrs. Bell.
She had spent forty-three years working for the Thorne family.
She knew which staff members stole food.
Which guards slept during night shifts.
Which girlfriends entered through side gates.
And apparently, which cleaning products each department used.
Rebecca showed her a photograph of Dean's leather pouch.
Mrs. Bell narrowed her eyes.
"That isn't Dean's."
Rebecca straightened.
"How do you know?"
"Because Dean never carried leather."
"Why does that matter?"
Mrs. Bell pointed.
"That pouch came from the executive security gift sets."
Silas pushed away from the wall.
"What?"
"Christmas. Three years ago. Mr. Thorne gave the senior security staff monogrammed leather kits."
Gideon's eyes moved toward Silas.
Silas frowned.
"Dean could have stolen one."
Mrs. Bell shook her head.
"Not that one."
"How can you tell?"
"It has a silver clasp. The first set had brass. Silver was the replacement order the following year."
"Who received those?" Rebecca asked.
Mrs. Bell began naming people.
Seven names.
Six still worked for Gideon.
One did not.
Liam Price.
The former security contractor who had been fired for selling access credentials.
Gideon immediately ordered his team to locate him.
They found his truck before they found him.
Abandoned behind a motel outside Murfreesboro.
The room had been cleared.
No clothes.
No suitcase.
No toothbrush.
But beneath the bed, investigators hired by Rebecca found a torn shipping receipt.
Paid in cash.
Destination: a storage facility thirty miles away.
The rental contract at that facility belonged to a shell company.
The registered agent was Dean Harlan.
Rebecca called the sheriff's investigator.
This time she did not have to argue very hard for a warrant.
Cora remained in jail.
Her bail hearing had been scheduled for the next morning.
She hated the cell most after dark.
During the day, noise filled everything.
Doors.
Voices.
Phones.
At night, her thoughts became louder.
She wondered whether she had been stupid.
Not for trusting Nero.
Never that.
For believing she could live beside men like Gideon Thorne without eventually being burned by their world.
She knew what people said about him.
Smuggling.
Extortion.
Old violence.
Businesses acquired from men who suddenly decided they wanted to sell.
No convictions.
Plenty of rumors.
Cora had never asked Gideon about his work.
He had never lied to her by pretending it wasn't dangerous.
But she had separated the estate from the rest of him.
Nero.
Mrs. Bell.
The garden.
The quiet kitchen at midnight.
Maybe that had been convenient.
Maybe kindness inside one room did not erase what happened outside it.
At eleven, a guard stopped at her cell.
"Walsh."
Cora sat up.
"Visitor."
Gideon waited behind thick glass.
Cora picked up the phone.
"You shouldn't be here."
"Probably not."
"Nero?"
"Sleeping in your room."
Her eyes burned.
"They let him come home?"
"Temporary custody order."
"Did he eat dinner?"
"Yes."
"Plastic bowl?"
Gideon gave her a tired look.
"Yes, Cora."
"Okay."
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Cora said, "Are you angry?"
"At you?"
She nodded.
"No."
"How can you be sure?"
His gaze sharpened.
"Because Nero is."
She frowned.
Gideon leaned closer to the glass.
"That dog has never pretended in his life. He was drugged, restrained and taken from the only person he trusts. When they brought him past you, he tried to reach you."
"That doesn't prove anything."
"No."
He paused.
"But I have spent half my life around liars."
Cora looked down.
"And?"
"Animals are easier."
Despite everything, she almost laughed.
Gideon's expression softened.
"We're going to get you out."
"Rebecca says the evidence is bad."
"Rebecca enjoys telling people how bad things are before she fixes them."
"Did you know Dean was working with Liam Price?"
"We don't know that yet."
"You think they are."
"I think someone altered security records."
"Someone inside?"
Gideon did not answer.
That was answer enough.
Cora gripped the phone tighter.
"Be careful."
His face changed slightly.
"You're in jail and you're telling me to be careful."
"You're terrible at letting other people worry about you."
"And you're terrible at worrying about the correct thing."
She smiled weakly.
Then Gideon became serious again.
"Cora."
"Yeah?"
"If there is anything you remember from two years ago—anything you dismissed—tell Rebecca."
She thought about it.
Dean's keys.
The whistle.
Sedatives.
Nero's fear.
Then another memory surfaced.
One she had forgotten completely.
"The storm."
"What about it?"
"The night I found the whistle, I saw headlights beyond the rear hedge."
"What vehicle?"
"I don't know."
"Think."
Cora closed her eyes.
She had run outside barefoot.
Rain.
Lightning.
A dark shape moving behind the maintenance building.
Not a pickup.
Lower.
Sleeker.
"I remember a taillight."
"Color?"
"Red."
Gideon waited.
"No. Not the light itself. There was tape over part of it. One side looked like a red triangle."
His expression changed.
Cora noticed.
"What?"
Gideon did not answer.
"Gideon."
"I know that car."
"Whose?"
He looked toward someone outside Cora's view.
Then back at her.
"It belonged to Silas."
Cora felt the room tilt.
"Silas?"
"He had a damaged taillight after an accident that winter."
"But Silas checked the cameras."
"I know."
"He told us they failed."
"I know."
Cora whispered, "Why would he protect Dean?"
Gideon looked away.
For the first time since she had known him, he looked uncertain.
"That's what I need to find out."
The next morning, law enforcement opened Dean's rented storage unit.
Inside were three filing cabinets.
Veterinary supplies.
Old employee badges.
Computer equipment.
Photographs of the Thorne estate.
And dozens of pictures of Cora.
At the grocery store.
At the vet clinic.
Walking Nero.
Sitting outside a coffee shop.
Sleeping beside Nero's kennel during a storm, photographed through a window.
The sheriff's investigator stopped calling Dean a witness.
But the most important thing in the unit was hidden inside a waterproof case beneath a workbench.
A laptop.
The hard drive had been partially wiped.
Technicians recovered fragments.
Access codes.
Security diagrams.
Cloned badge data.
Payments from an encrypted account.
And one message.
THE GIRL GOES DOWN. DOG GETS REMOVED. THEN THE EAST CORRIDOR IS OPEN.
Rebecca read it twice.
"What is in the east corridor?"
Gideon did not answer.
She looked at him.
"Gideon."
He stared at the message.
"Something men have killed for."
Rebecca's expression darkened.
"What?"
"A ledger."
Not just financial records.
Names.
Judges.
Businessmen.
Police officers.
Politicians.
Criminal partners.
Men Gideon had paid.
Men who had paid him.
Records from an empire he had quietly been trying to dismantle for three years.
Cora had never been the true target.
Neither had Nero.
Someone needed them both removed because Nero slept outside the east corridor every night.
And there was only one person besides Gideon who knew exactly what the ledger contained.
Silas Kane.
At that exact moment, Mrs. Bell opened the door to Cora's empty staff room.
"Nero?"
No answer.
The bedroom window stood open.
The bed was empty.
May you like
On the floor lay Gideon's security keycard.
And a thin trail of blood led toward the east corridor.
