Chapter 6 - THE MISSING HUSBAND
Victor’s hotel room looked like a crime scene designed by someone who understood television.
The door had been forced.
A lamp lay shattered near the bed.
Blood marked the bathroom sink.
Financial records were spread across the carpet.
A handwritten note bearing Eleanor’s signature instructed Victor to transfer funds and leave the country.
Security footage showed Victor entering the room at 2:14 p.m.
No footage showed him leaving.
The hallway camera stopped recording for eleven minutes at 3:07.
When the image returned, a housekeeping cart stood outside the door.
No housekeeper was assigned to that floor.
Chicago police considered three possibilities.
Victor had been abducted.
Victor had staged his disappearance.
Or Victor had been killed.
Adrian Pike believed the second.
“Victor called me forty minutes before he vanished,” he said.
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He wanted to negotiate.”
“With prosecutors?”
“With you.”
The police detective looked toward me.
We stood inside the hotel’s conference room while forensic officers processed Victor’s suite.
“What did he want from Ms. Hartwell?” Detective Marcus Shaw asked.
Adrian adjusted his cuffs.
“Protection from Martin Voss.”
“Why call you instead of federal investigators?”
“Because Victor does not trust them.”
“He stole from a federally regulated company.”
“Distrust is not always rational.”
“What was he offering?” I asked.
Adrian hesitated.
“Kendra.”
My stomach tightened.
“He knew where Martin took her?”
“He claimed he could find out.”
“How?”
“Victor and Martin used an emergency communication system.”
“A hidden account?”
“A message board inside Meridian’s vendor portal.”
Russell immediately contacted the company’s cybersecurity division.
They found a private directory embedded beneath a dormant supplier profile.
The account had been accessed from Victor’s hotel forty-seven minutes before his disappearance.
One message remained.
THE WOMAN HAS THE WRONG DRIVE.
Another message followed.
BRING THE REAL FILE TO THE OLD YARD.
The old yard referred to the original Hartwell lumber property outside Milwaukee.
The place where my father’s empire began.
The property had been abandoned for almost twenty years.
“Victor went there,” I said.
Detective Shaw shook his head.
“No footage shows him leaving.”
“Then someone removed him in the housekeeping cart.”
The cart was found in a basement service corridor.
Inside, forensic officers discovered Victor’s watch and a small amount of blood.
Not enough to indicate a fatal injury.
Adrian turned toward me.
“Martin needs Victor alive.”
“Why?”
“Because Victor signed the voting agreements.”
“The agreements remain valid without him.”
“Not the final transfer.”
Martin’s hostile takeover required Victor to certify that several shell investors operated independently.
It was false.
But without the certification, regulators could block the voting rights.
Victor had become both liability and key.
Just as I had once used him as an experiment, Martin used him as a signature.
We drove to Milwaukee before sunset.
My father insisted on coming.
Russell objected.
Arthur ignored him.
The old Hartwell yard occupied thirty acres beside an abandoned rail line.
The main warehouse had partially collapsed.
Rainwater filled the loading pits.
Rust covered the machinery my grandfather once purchased with borrowed money.
Federal agents surrounded the property from a distance.
A tracking team detected three active phones inside the warehouse.
One belonged to Victor.
One belonged to Kendra.
The third used Martin’s encrypted network.
“Stay in the vehicle,” Russell told me.
“No.”
“Olivia—”
“My husband and the woman who helped destroy my marriage are inside.”
“That is not a reason to enter an armed location.”
“It is a reason not to sit safely outside while other people carry the consequences.”
My father looked at me.
“Russell is right.”
“You came.”
“I am seventy-one and already disappointing my doctors.”
“That is not an argument.”
“It is the only one you are getting.”
Agents entered through the south side.
Within seconds, gunshots echoed inside.
Russell forced my father and me behind an armored vehicle.
A window shattered.
A man ran from the eastern loading bay.
Federal agents tackled him.
It was not Martin.
It was one of his security contractors.
Then Victor appeared at an upper window.
His hands were tied.
Blood covered the collar of his shirt.
He saw me below.
Even at that distance, I recognized the shock on his face.
He had not expected me to come.
A figure pulled him away from the window.
I heard Kendra scream.
The warehouse doors opened.
A van accelerated toward the north exit.
Police vehicles blocked the road.
The driver turned sharply, struck a concrete barrier, and rolled onto its side.
Agents surrounded it.
Kendra crawled through the broken windshield.
Her hands were zip-tied.
“Victor’s still inside!” she shouted.
Smoke began pouring from the warehouse roof.
Martin had set the building on fire.
Federal agents rushed toward the entrances.
Russell grabbed my arm.
“Do not move.”
A section of the roof collapsed.
Flames spread across the old timber.
My father stared at the building his father had once built.
Another window shattered.
Victor appeared on the second floor, coughing and trying to break a wooden chair against the glass.
No agent could reach the interior staircase.
The eastern wall had collapsed.
Victor looked down.
Then he saw the maintenance ladder attached to the exterior.
The lower section had rusted away.
There was a gap of almost twelve feet between the bottom rung and the ground.
He climbed through the window.
Fire rolled across the ceiling behind him.
“Victor!” I shouted.
He looked toward my voice.
For one second, we were husband and wife again.
Not enemies.
Not plaintiff and defendant.
Two people who had once shared a bed, watching death approach from different sides of a wall.
He began descending.
The ladder shook beneath his weight.
Halfway down, one bracket tore free.
Victor slipped.
He caught the rung with one hand.
Agents moved below him.
“Jump!” someone shouted.
The remaining bracket snapped.
Victor fell.
He struck the ground hard and did not move.
Paramedics reached him.
He was alive.
As they lifted him onto a stretcher, his eyes opened.
He saw me standing beside my father.
“Martin,” he whispered.
“What about him?” I asked.
Victor coughed.
“He wanted your father here.”
A sharp crack echoed from the tree line.
May you like
My father’s body jerked.
Blood spread across his white shirt.
