Chapter 11 - The Body in Chicago
The body Grant identified had been found beneath an abandoned warehouse near the Chicago River.
The woman carried Mara Hale’s passport.
She wore the serpent ring.
Dental records matched files stored under Mara’s name.
But Grant knew she was not Mara.
“When we were children, Mara broke her left wrist,” he explained as the timer continued counting down. “It healed incorrectly. The body had no old fracture.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police?”
“The detective handling the case worked for Halcyon security.”
The voice on the phone interrupted.
“The body belonged to Lena Ortiz, one of my investigators.”
Nora gripped the device.
“You allowed her to be identified as you?”
“I did not kill her.”
“That was not my question.”
“I needed the people hunting me to believe I was dead.”
“So you used a dead woman.”
“I used the identity they placed on her.”
The timer reached two minutes.
Rosa searched the walls while Grant examined the control desk.
Nora focused on the phone.
“Who built the false videos?”
“Halcyon’s behavioral reconstruction division.”
“Who controls it?”
“Officially, the board. In reality, the Continuity trustee.”
“Adeline’s company.”
“Adeline’s name,” Mara corrected. “Not necessarily Adeline.”
“Who poisoned the cake?”
“I do not know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I know the cake was designed to trigger the incapacity clause. I know Malcolm tried to stop it. I know someone used your identity to pay for it.”
“Why did you tell Grant that I should eat the first slice?”
“I told him the target would be whoever was expected to eat first. I told him to prevent you from touching it.”
Grant looked at Nora.
“The calls were altered.”
The fake voice had reversed Mara’s warning.
Someone monitoring them had changed the instruction from protect the first person to make Nora the first person.
The timer reached one minute.
Grant found a manual panel beneath the desk.
“There are no explosives,” he said. “The timer is connected to data release.”
“What data?” Nora asked.
Mara answered.
“Every falsified video prepared to destroy your family.”
At zero, the files would be sent to law enforcement, media outlets and Whitfield board members.
“That helps us,” Nora said.
“No,” Grant replied. “A mass release will mix the fake evidence with the real evidence. No one will know what to believe.”
The goal was not to prove Nora guilty.
It was to destroy the possibility of truth.
Thirty seconds remained.
Rosa removed one of the cake plates from the table.
Beneath it was a narrow metal switch.
“Mrs. Evelyn used plates like this at the old estate,” she said. “The ceremonial set had pressure locks.”
Nora placed the missing anniversary plate on the empty setting.
Nothing happened.
“The first slice opens the first door,” she whispered.
She moved the slice from her labeled plate onto Grant’s.
The timer stopped at eight seconds.
A hidden drawer opened.
Inside was the original blue ledger.
Thomas Hale’s complete record.
Grant lifted it carefully.
The phone line remained active.
“Mara,” Nora said, “where are you?”
“Closer than Grant thinks.”
“What do you want?”
“To know whether you are Thomas’s daughter or another Whitfield.”
“I am both.”
“Then you are already in danger.”
The call disconnected.
The suite doors unlocked.
On the central monitor, Malcolm’s vehicle left the highway and entered a private airfield.
Grant photographed the ledger pages while Nora traced Malcolm’s route.
“He is trying to leave the country,” Grant said.
“Or meet the person behind the cake.”
Rosa pointed toward another screen.
A live security feed showed Malcolm stepping from his vehicle with the stolen cake box.
A private jet waited nearby.
Beside the stairs stood a woman in a red coat.
The same woman from Chicago.
She turned toward the airfield camera.
May you like
Her face was not Mara’s.
It was Nora’s.
