Chapter 13 - The Sanatorium
The Hale Sanatorium stood against the mountain like the remains of a dead kingdom.
Its windows were black.
Fire damage scarred the eastern wing.
Rainwater flowed down the stone steps.
Ruiz requested additional tactical units, but the nearest team remained forty minutes away.
Crowe and Adrian could leave long before then.
Renata offered a deal.
She would guide us through the underground entrances in exchange for protection and consideration from prosecutors.
Ruiz refused to promise anything.
Renata smiled.
“You may arrest me properly after you survive.”
Harris remained with the wounded men and responding officers.
Ruiz, Grant, two tactical deputies, and I followed Renata toward an old drainage tunnel.
Lily stayed inside an armored police vehicle with a female officer.
Grant hated leaving her, but bringing her into the building was impossible.
Before we left, Lily held my hand.
“Do not believe Renata.”
“I do not.”
“She cries when she lies.”
I glanced toward Renata.
Her face was wet from the rain.
No one could tell whether she was crying.
The drainage tunnel opened beneath the sanatorium’s kitchen.
Renata knew the route because Adrian used the abandoned facility for secret meetings.
Their relationship had begun there years earlier.
“Before Grant?” I asked.
“Before Claire ever met me.”
Renata’s honesty no longer served morality.
It served survival.
Adrian had recruited her from a consulting firm.
He wanted someone close to Claire.
At first, Renata gathered information.
Then Claire trusted her.
“I liked her,” Renata admitted.
“You killed her.”
“I envied her.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“For me, it became the same.”
We entered a corridor lined with broken medical equipment.
A light glowed beneath a door at the far end.
Voices came from inside.
Adrian spoke first.
“You were supposed to leave the country.”
Crowe answered.
“You were supposed to destroy the drive.”
Renata whispered, “They are in the old operating theater.”
Ruiz positioned the deputies at separate entrances.
Grant ignored her signal and looked through a cracked window.
Inside, Adrian stood beside a metal table.
His silver-handled cane rested against a chair.
Simon Crowe paced beneath a hanging light.
Charles Wynn’s daughter sat bound near the wall.
She was alive.
Crowe held a small black device.
Ruiz recognized it as a remote detonator.
Wires ran from the table toward several containers near the exits.
The building had been rigged.
Crowe had not come to negotiate.
He intended to bury the evidence and everyone connected to it beneath the sanatorium.
Adrian looked toward the captive woman.
“You have become reckless.”
Crowe laughed.
“I arranged Sofia Bennett’s accident before you were old enough to sign your own checks.”
Maya’s mother.
My mother.
I pressed closer to the window.
Crowe continued.
“I built the accounts. I controlled Mercer. I placed Wynn beside Edmund and Renata beside Claire.”
Adrian lifted his cane.
“And you worked for me.”
“I worked for Victoria first.”
Adrian’s expression changed.
“My mother?”
“She knew Edmund intended to divide the company between you and Grant.”
Crowe smiled.
“She believed the company belonged to you.”
“Why did she never tell me?”
“Because she did not trust you either.”
Adrian struck Crowe across the face with the cane.
Crowe staggered.
The detonator fell.
Grant pushed through the door.
Ruiz cursed and followed.
“Move away from the device!”
Adrian turned.
“Grant.”
Crowe reached for the detonator.
I kicked it beneath the table.
One deputy rushed toward Wynn’s daughter.
The second aimed at Adrian.
Renata entered behind us.
Adrian stared at her.
“You failed.”
“You sent men to kill me.”
“You were always replaceable.”
For the first time, Renata looked genuinely wounded.
Crowe lunged toward the detonator.
Ruiz tackled him.
A gun slid from his coat.
Grant seized it.
Adrian raised both hands.
“You are not going to shoot me.”
“You killed Claire.”
“Renata killed Claire.”
Renata laughed.
“You held Lily behind the curtain.”
Grant looked at his brother.
Adrian’s face changed.
Lily had not hidden by herself.
Adrian had placed her there.
Why?
Renata answered the question.
“He wanted Lily to watch.”
My stomach turned.
Adrian’s voice remained calm.
“She needed to understand what happened to people who threatened the family.”
“You were going to kill a five-year-old child?” Grant asked.
“No. She was more useful frightened.”
Grant struck him.
Adrian fell against the metal table.
Ruiz shouted for Grant to step back.
Crowe twisted beneath her and reached for the gun.
Renata kicked it away.
The weapon discharged.
The bullet struck one of the wired containers.
A red light began flashing.
Crowe froze.
“What did you do?”
Smoke poured from the container.
The device was armed.
The detonator beneath the table no longer mattered.
A secondary timer had activated.
Ruiz pulled Crowe to his feet.
“How long?”
He remained silent.
She slammed him against the wall.
“How long?”
“Three minutes.”
The operating theater erupted into movement.
The deputies freed Wynn’s daughter.
Renata ran toward the western corridor.
Ruiz shouted after her.
“She knows another exit,” I said.
We followed.
Adrian struggled to his feet.
Grant could have left him.
Instead, he pulled his brother upright.
“No one else dies in this family.”
We reached the drainage tunnel as the first explosion tore through the eastern wing.
The floor lifted beneath us.
Stone and dust filled the passage.
Crowe broke free from Ruiz and ran in the opposite direction.
He disappeared behind a collapsing wall.
The second explosion struck.
Grant pushed me beneath an arch as debris crashed around us.
When the dust cleared, the tunnel behind us was sealed.
Simon Crowe was trapped inside.
Then we heard his voice through the rubble.
Not calling for help.
May you like
Laughing.
“The original recording is still in the building!”
