Chapter 2 - THE BLACKOUT
Darkness swallowed the room.
Willa heard someone swear.
A monitor alarm began shrieking.
The backup battery kept Everett’s cardiac monitor alive, painting the room in weak green flashes.
“Don’t touch him!” Willa shouted.
A security guard collided with a chair.
Whitfield moved somewhere near the IV pole.
Willa lunged blindly.
Her hand caught his wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“Let go!”
Something metallic struck the floor.
A syringe.
Willa kicked it beneath the bed.
Then the mansion’s emergency generator activated.
Lights flickered back on.
Whitfield stood inches from Everett’s IV port.
His face was slick with sweat.
Willa still had his wrist in both hands.
The two security men stared.
“What were you injecting?” she demanded.
“Emergency medication.”
“With what syringe?”
Whitfield looked down.
The syringe was gone.
Willa stepped between him and Everett.
“You’re not touching him again.”
Whitfield laughed nervously.
“You think waking for three seconds means he’s recovered?”
“No.”
“I’m his physician.”
“And I’m his legal wife.”
The sentence surprised even Willa.
Sterling appeared in the doorway moments later.
“What happened?”
Nobody answered immediately.
Then Whitfield said, “She altered his medication.”
Willa turned.
“He opened his eyes.”
Sterling froze.
Only briefly.
But Willa saw it.
Fear.
“What?”
“He spoke.”
Whitfield interrupted.
“An involuntary vocalization.”
“He called you a traitor.”
Silence filled the room.
Sterling stared at Everett.
The unconscious man looked peaceful again.
Too peaceful.
Willa glanced at the IV.
Whitfield had almost certainly managed to push something before she stopped him.
“How long was the power out?” Sterling asked.
“Maybe fifteen seconds,” one guard said.
Sterling’s expression hardened.
“Convenient.”
Willa looked at him.
“You think I caused it?”
“I think you’ve been in this house less than two weeks and suddenly medical equipment is being tampered with.”
“Then call an ambulance.”
Whitfield snapped his head toward her.
“No.”
Willa pointed at him.
“There. Did everybody hear that?”
Whitfield composed himself.
“Moving Mr. Kane would be medically dangerous.”
“He needs an independent hospital evaluation.”
Sterling stepped forward.
“This family handles its affairs privately.”
“He isn’t an affair. He’s a patient.”
“And you are forgetting your position.”
Willa felt Everett’s fingers brush hers beneath the blanket.
Once.
Stay calm.
She wondered whether that was what he meant.
Or perhaps simply: I’m here.
Either way, it gave her courage.
“I’m calling 911.”
Sterling removed her phone from the bedside table before she could reach it.
“No.”
Willa stared at him.
“You can’t imprison me.”
“No one is imprisoning you.”
“Give me my phone.”
“You signed a contract.”
“I signed a marriage certificate.”
“And several associated agreements.”
“None of them said I surrender my freedom.”
Sterling’s expression darkened.
He looked toward the guards.
“Escort her to the east wing.”
Willa fought them all the way into the hallway.
“Everett!”
The bedroom doors slammed shut.
She was taken down two corridors and locked inside a guest room.
For twenty minutes, she pounded the door.
Then she stopped.
Panic wasted energy.
Willa searched the room.
Windows.
Locked.
Bathroom.
No second exit.
Telephone.
Disconnected.
She sat on the edge of the bed and forced herself to think.
Her notebook.
It was still beneath the cushion of the armchair beside Everett.
Every observation she had made was inside it.
Whitfield would find it.
Unless—
Willa suddenly remembered something.
Three nights earlier, she had become nervous about the notebook.
She had photographed several pages with an old prepaid phone she kept hidden in the lining of her canvas bag.
The phone had no service.
But it had a camera.
And memory.
Her canvas bag had been delivered to this room when she first arrived.
Willa dropped to her knees and opened it.
Clothes.
A toothbrush.
Two photographs of her mother.
Then she found the torn seam.
Her fingers pulled out a cheap black phone.
Still there.
She turned it on.
The battery showed thirty-seven percent.
The photographs remained.
Whitfield entering at 12:14 a.m.
Medication changes.
Heart rates.
Pupil responses.
Enough to raise questions.
Not enough to prove attempted murder.
Willa looked around the bedroom.
There had to be a way to get evidence out of the house.
The door suddenly unlocked.
Mr. Crowley entered.
The house manager closed it quietly behind him.
“You have five minutes.”
Willa stood.
“For what?”
Crowley reached inside his coat.
She stepped back.
Instead of a weapon, he produced her notebook.
Willa stared.
“I took it before Dr. Whitfield searched the bedroom.”
“Why?”
Crowley looked toward the door.
“Because Everett Kane saved my son’s life twelve years ago.”
Willa said nothing.
Crowley continued.
“My son borrowed money from men he should not have borrowed from. Everett paid the debt and gave him a job in Milwaukee. Never asked me to repay a cent.”
He handed her the notebook.
“I have served this family for thirty-four years. Everett was ruthless in business. But he had rules.”
“Sterling doesn’t?”
Crowley’s mouth tightened.
“Sterling has appetites.”
“Why hasn’t anyone stopped him?”
“Because people who challenge Sterling tend to disappear.”
Willa felt cold.
“Did Everett’s accident happen because of Sterling?”
Crowley looked away.
“That is not my story to tell.”
“Then whose is it?”
A faint voice came from the hallway.
“Mine.”
Crowley turned.
A young woman stood outside the partially open door.
She was perhaps thirty-two, dressed in black trousers and a cream blouse. Her dark hair was pulled into a severe knot.
Willa recognized her from the wedding.
She had sat alone in the rear pew.
“My name is Mara Kane,” the woman said.
“Everett’s sister.”
Willa looked from her to Crowley.
Mara entered and locked the door again.
“Sterling thinks I’m obedient because I spent eight years living in London.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
Mara walked toward the window.
“The night Everett crashed, he called me.”
Willa’s pulse quickened.
“He said someone inside Kane Logistics had been moving weapons through legitimate freight routes without his authorization.”
“Weapons?”
“Military-grade components. Stolen firearms. Other things I wasn’t supposed to know.”
“Sterling?”
“Everett didn’t say.”
Mara’s eyes hardened.
“He said he had proof stored somewhere even he didn’t trust keeping at home.”
“What happened afterward?”
“His car went through a guardrail on Lower Wacker Drive forty minutes later.”
“Police said brake failure.”
“Police said many things.”
Mara looked directly at Willa.
“Everett’s mechanic disappeared two days after the crash.”
Willa absorbed the information.
“What about Whitfield?”
“He arrived at the hospital before I did.”
That detail mattered.
“How?”
Mara shook her head.
“No idea.”
“And eight months later he’s still controlling Everett’s medication.”
“Yes.”
Willa looked at her notebook.
“We need to get Everett out.”
“I’ve tried.”
“Try differently.”
Mara almost smiled.
“You really were a nurse.”
“I still am in every way that matters.”
A knock sounded at the door.
Three slow taps.
Crowley’s face changed.
“Sterling.”
Mara opened the bathroom door.
“Inside.”
Willa hid the notebook under her clothing and moved quickly.
Before entering the bathroom, she whispered, “What about Everett?”
Crowley answered.
“Whitfield says he’s unconscious again.”
Willa turned.
“Is Whitfield alone with him?”
Crowley nodded.
Willa felt terror climb her spine.
Because Everett had just proven he could wake.
And now the people who had spent eight months preventing exactly that knew their secret was failing.
Sterling knocked again.
This time harder.
“Willa?”
She stepped into the bathroom.
Mara pulled the door nearly closed.
Then Sterling spoke from the hallway.
“Open the door.”
A pause.
“And tell my new cousin-in-law there’s been a change of plans.”
Willa held her breath.
May you like
Sterling continued.
“Everett won’t be needing a wife much longer.”
