Chapter 6 - Three Days.
Detective Ruiz refused to let us remain in the townhouse.
Hotel management placed Sophie and me in a secure suite on a restricted floor of the Whitmore.
The irony was not lost on me.
We returned to the same building where my daughter had been attacked because it possessed better security than our home.
Malik assigned two guards to the corridor.
No employee could access the floor without a temporary code.
Sophie barely spoke during the drive.
She held the damaged Captain Marshmallow inside a clear evidence bag.
When we reached the suite, she asked whether the rabbit could be repaired.
“I think so.”
“His heart is missing.”
I looked inside the torn seam.
The small fabric heart I had sewn into the rabbit years earlier was gone.
Someone had taken it.
I knelt beside her.
“We will give him a new one.”
“It won’t be the same.”
“No.”
I swallowed.
“But it can still be his.”
Sophie touched the bandage near her temple.
“Are we getting a new family too?”
The question broke me.
I pulled her gently into my arms.
“We already have one.”
“It’s you and me.”
She leaned against me.
“And Mr. Carter?”
I almost smiled.
“He is helping us.”
“And Detective Ruiz?”
“She is helping too.”
Sophie considered this.
“That is more people than yesterday.”
Children have a way of finding truth without making it beautiful.
That night, a child trauma specialist named Dr. Naomi Ellis visited Sophie.
She explained that frightening memories could return through dreams, sounds, or sudden feelings.
She told Sophie none of it was her fault.
While they spoke, I met with Margaret and Malik in the adjoining room.
The date written beneath Sophie’s photograph was Monday.
Three days away.
“What happens Monday?” Malik asked.
Margaret opened a corporate calendar.
“Hale Construction’s board is scheduled to vote on the Ravenswood redevelopment contract.”
The project was worth nearly eight hundred million dollars.
It involved luxury towers, public housing demolition, city funds, and several politically connected investors.
“With Sophie’s shares frozen under protective trust supervision, who controls the vote?” I asked.
“You do, as her guardian,” Margaret said.
My stomach tightened.
“What does my father want approved?”
“A transfer of the project to a newly formed subcontractor called Northstar Urban Holdings.”
Malik searched the company on his laptop.
“No meaningful operating history.”
Margaret nodded.
“It was incorporated six months ago.”
“Who owns it?”
“The ownership structure is hidden through several limited-liability companies.”
I remembered Grandfather’s letter.
He had discovered irregular transfers from the family foundation.
“What happens if the board rejects Northstar?”
“Your father loses an enormous amount of money.”
“How enormous?”
“Possibly hundreds of millions.”
The threat against Sophie was not merely emotional revenge.
Someone needed my vote.
Detective Ruiz entered with the preliminary forensic report from my townhouse.
No fingerprints had been recovered.
The intruder disabled the neighborhood camera network using a portable signal jammer.
However, a neighbor’s dashboard camera captured a black utility van leaving the street.
The plate was false.
On the rear door was a faded logo.
NORTHSTAR ELECTRICAL SERVICES.
Malik turned his screen toward us.
“Northstar Urban Holdings lists an electrical subsidiary.”
The connections were tightening.
Ruiz placed a photograph of the van on the table.
“Your father’s company may be connected to the break-in.”
“I want him arrested.”
“So do I.”
“Then arrest him.”
“I need evidence proving he ordered it.”
“He was recorded planning to frame my daughter.”
“That may support conspiracy charges related to the wedding.”
“It does not automatically prove he sent someone into your home.”
Law had once seemed simple to me.
A person did something evil.
Police arrested them.
A jury punished them.
Now I saw the spaces powerful people occupied between guilt and proof.
My father had lived in those spaces his entire life.
At midnight, Malik received an alert from the hotel’s lower parking garage.
A motion sensor had activated near an unused storage corridor.
The camera feed showed a banquet server moving between concrete pillars.
Malik recognized him.
“Jonah Price.”
“Who is he?” Ruiz asked.
“He worked Preston’s reception.”
The young man kept looking over his shoulder.
He carried a black backpack.
Malik called him.
Jonah answered in a whisper.
“I need to talk to Ms. Hale.”
“Come to the security office.”
“I can’t.”
“They’re watching the elevators.”
“Who is watching?”
“Men from Northstar.”
Ruiz signaled for officers to move toward the garage.
Jonah continued.
“I saw Preston meet someone before the wedding.”
“He paid him to access the cameras.”
“Do you know the person’s name?”
“No.”
“But I took pictures.”
A loud metallic sound came through the phone.
Jonah stopped breathing.
“Someone’s here.”
“Hide,” Ruiz ordered.
Footsteps echoed through the call.
Jonah began running.
The image on the garage camera showed him crossing between rows of parked vehicles.
A black van entered from the lower ramp.
Its headlights swept across the concrete.
Jonah ducked behind a pillar.
Two men stepped from the van.
One carried a crowbar.
The other carried something that reflected light.
A knife.
Police units were still several minutes away.
Malik grabbed a radio and ran for the elevator.
Ruiz followed.
I should have remained in the suite.
Instead, I followed them.
We reached the garage as a scream echoed from the lower level.
The black van accelerated toward the exit.
Malik jumped aside.
Ruiz aimed her weapon but could not fire with hotel employees crossing the upper ramp.
The van disappeared into the street.
We found Jonah behind a silver sedan.
Blood darkened his shirt.
His backpack was gone.
He pressed one hand against a wound near his ribs.
“They took the phone,” he gasped.
Ruiz knelt beside him.
“Who attacked you?”
Jonah’s face had turned pale.
“One of them called the other man Mr. Hale.”
I thought he meant my father.
Then he shook his head.
“Not Richard.”
May you like
His eyes met mine.
“It was Preston.”
