Chapter 13 - The Wife Before Sophia
Olivia Ward had been twenty-six when she disappeared.
She worked as an accountant for a private clinic partly owned by Charles Mercer.
Police reports described her marriage to Ethan Ward as troubled.
Neighbors heard arguments.
A coworker saw bruises.
Olivia filed for divorce but withdrew the petition two weeks later.
Then she vanished.
Ethan told police she had left him for another man.
Mercer confirmed that Olivia had stolen money from the clinic and fled.
The investigation ended when security footage appeared to show Olivia boarding a bus to New York.
Forensic experts now determined the video had been altered.
Olivia had discovered the early Northstar accounts.
Ethan had not simply joined Mercer’s operation.
His first wife had led him to it.
After Olivia disappeared, Ethan changed his name and began working for Northstar.
Sophia became his second target.
Or perhaps his replacement.
Liam sat beside Sophia’s hospital bed while she slept.
Her face looked peaceful beneath the bruises.
He wondered how many times she had tried to tell him.
How many warnings he had misunderstood.
Sophia opened her eyes.
“You found Olivia.”
“Yes.”
“She’s alive.”
Liam leaned closer.
“How do you know?”
“I saw her.”
“Where?”
“At Havenridge.”
Sophia struggled to speak.
“She was in the underground wing. They called her Patient Zero.”
Liam called Vance.
Within minutes, the room filled with investigators.
Sophia explained that Ethan had taken her to Havenridge after the failed escape from their house.
While imprisoned there, she heard another woman singing behind a locked door.
The song was one Ethan sometimes played in the car.
When Sophia asked Nora about the woman, Nora revealed the truth.
Olivia had survived.
Mercer kept her hidden because she knew the identities of Northstar’s original clients.
“Why didn’t they kill her?” Vance asked.
“They needed her memory.”
Sophia swallowed painfully.
“Olivia designed the first account system. Parts of it used codes only she understood.”
“Was she moved before the raid?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Nora was questioned.
She confirmed Olivia had been at Havenridge but claimed she did not know the new location.
Ethan had moved Olivia personally several months earlier.
Sophia looked toward the window.
“He won’t leave the country without her.”
“Because of the accounts?” Liam asked.
“Because Olivia is the only person he fears.”
Sophia rested for several hours.
That evening, a nurse brought a sealed envelope found among Sophia’s transferred belongings.
The envelope had been sewn into the hem of her blue dress.
Inside was a handwritten page from Olivia.
Ethan thinks I forgot the night at Blackwater.
I remember everything.
The paper included a drawing of a lighthouse.
Vance identified Blackwater Point, an abandoned coastal property once owned by Mercer’s family.
Police prepared a search.
Sophia insisted on helping.
“You’re not leaving this bed,” Liam said.
“I know the property layout.”
“How?”
“Olivia drew it for me.”
“She spoke to you?”
“Through the wall. She described every room and passage.”
“Why?”
“Because she knew Ethan would eventually move me.”
Sophia drew the plan from memory.
The main house stood beside the lighthouse.
A maintenance tunnel connected the basement to a sea cave.
Olivia believed Northstar used the cave to transport people without being seen from the road.
Vance led a tactical team to Blackwater Point.
The house was empty.
The basement contained medical restraints and old surveillance tapes.
The tunnel led to the shoreline.
A boat had recently departed.
On the wall of the sea cave, someone had written in chalk.
HE TOOK HER NORTH.
Beneath the message was a date.
August 17.
Three days in the future.
“It could be a planned transfer,” Vance said.
“Or a deadline,” Sophia replied when they showed her the photograph.
“For what?”
“The Northstar Continuity Meeting.”
According to the master file, senior members met once each year to renew agreements and transfer access codes.
The location changed annually.
The date was always August 17.
Ethan planned to attend.
He needed Olivia.
He needed Mercer.
And he still needed Sophia’s biometric key.
Mercer remained under guard in St. Matthew’s.
Sophia was recovering two floors above him.
Liam realized what Ethan was planning.
“He isn’t running from the hospital.”
May you like
Vance followed his gaze toward the corridor.
“He’s coming back for it.”
