Chapter 5 - The Brother in Room 808
Mia slowly raised her hands.
Lucas Bennett closed the door behind him.
He looked older than the photographs Sophie had shown her, but his eyes were unmistakably similar to Adrian’s.
“Are you going to shoot me?” Mia asked.
“That depends on whether you came alone.”
“I did.”
“Phone.”
Mia placed it on the floor and slid it toward him.
Lucas removed the battery.
“You have three minutes to explain why you are here.”
Mia told him about the gala, the morality clause, Julian’s disappearance, and the fire at the mansion.
Lucas listened without interrupting.
When she finished, he lowered the pistol.
“Is Sophie safe?”
“For the moment.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No child connected to Cassandra Whitmore is completely safe.”
Lucas looked toward the red box.
“You think Cassandra is behind everything.”
“I think she stole foundation money and abused Sophie.”
“She did.”
“You sound certain.”
“I watched her build the system.”
Mia studied him.
“The payment records carry your initials.”
Lucas gave a humorless laugh.
“Those initials are why I disappeared.”
Six years earlier, Lucas had served as chief operating officer of Whitmore Holdings.
He discovered that millions of dollars were moving through shell companies connected to the foundation.
When he confronted Adrian, the evidence appeared to show Lucas had authorized the transfers.
His digital signature was attached to every payment.
Cassandra produced emails implying Lucas planned to flee the country.
Adrian believed the documents.
The brothers fought.
Lucas was forced out of the company.
Weeks later, someone planted stolen bearer bonds in his apartment.
Lucas ran before he could be arrested.
He spent years gathering proof that Cassandra had framed him.
“Why didn’t you contact Adrian?” Mia asked.
“I tried.”
“He ignored you?”
“The messages never reached him.”
Cassandra controlled Adrian’s staff, calendar, and private communications.
Lucas eventually arranged a secret meeting with his brother.
It was scheduled for the morning after Adrian’s final flight.
Adrian never arrived.
Lucas believed the crash was murder.
“What is in the box?” Mia asked.
“Copies of evidence Adrian mailed to me before he died.”
“Then give it to Sophie.”
Lucas looked away.
“There is something inside that will hurt her.”
“She is already being hurt.”
“This is different.”
Mia moved closer.
“Cassandra is trying to have her declared mentally incompetent.”
Lucas’s expression changed.
“She used Reeves?”
“You know him?”
“He wrote the report that destroyed my career.”
Lucas opened the red box.
Inside were bank records, audio files, aviation reports, and photographs.
At the bottom lay a sealed medical envelope.
Lucas handed Mia a flash drive.
“This contains enough to prove Cassandra embezzled at least fourteen million dollars.”
“What about Adrian’s death?”
“The evidence suggests sabotage.”
“Suggests?”
“The mechanic who worked on the plane disappeared.”
“And the medical envelope?”
Lucas did not answer.
Mia reached for it.
He caught her wrist.
“Not yet.”
A noise sounded in the corridor.
Lucas turned off the lamp.
Footsteps approached Room 808.
More than one person.
Lucas pushed Mia behind the door and raised the pistol.
The handle moved.
Two masked men entered.
The first carried a flashlight and a compact handgun.
Lucas struck him before he could aim.
The second fired.
The shot tore into the wall.
Mia dropped behind the bed.
Lucas fought the first attacker while the second moved toward the red box.
Mia grabbed the heavy tape recorder and swung it against his arm.
His weapon fell.
Lucas forced both attackers into the corridor.
They escaped down the stairwell.
When Mia looked inside the red box again, the medical envelope was gone.
One of the attackers had taken it.
Lucas swore under his breath.
“What was in that envelope?”
He checked the corridor.
“We need to leave.”
“Tell me.”
Lucas looked at her.
“Evidence that Sophie’s mother may not have died the way everyone believes.”
Mia stared at him.
Sophie’s mother, Caroline Bennett, had supposedly died from complications after an automobile accident when Sophie was four.
“What do you mean?”
“Caroline discovered the foundation scheme before I did.”
“You think Cassandra killed her?”
“I think Cassandra was involved.”
They left through a rear staircase and drove south in Lucas’s truck.
Mia used a prepaid phone to call Evelyn.
Lucas refused to speak until he knew the line was secure.
When Sophie heard her uncle was alive, she went completely still.
“Put him on.”
Lucas hesitated.
Then he took the phone.
“Hello, Soph.”
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Sophie remembered him lifting her onto his shoulders at a summer picnic.
She remembered her father removing every photograph of him from the house.
“Did you steal from my father?” she asked.
“No.”
“Did he believe you did?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you come back?”
“I was trying to stay alive.”
Sophie’s voice hardened.
“So was I.”
Lucas closed his eyes.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
She ended the call.
Lucas handed the phone back to Mia.
“She has Adrian’s temper.”
“She also has eighteen months of reasons not to trust anyone.”
They reached New York before dawn.
Daniel searched Lucas for weapons before allowing him into the safe apartment.
Evelyn greeted him with a slap across the face.
“That was for disappearing,” she said.
Then she embraced him.
Sophie watched from the other side of the room.
Lucas did not approach her.
He placed the red box on the table.
“This is everything Adrian sent me.”
Sophie looked through the records.
The documents showed Cassandra directing foundation money into consulting firms controlled by Julian Mercer.
From there, funds moved to judges, doctors, private investigators, and political donors.
One recipient appeared repeatedly.
Malcolm Reeves.
The psychiatrist who had declared Sophie unstable.
Evelyn found payments to the judge assigned to Friday’s hearing.
Judge Thomas Bell.
The evidence was damaging but circumstantial.
The payments came through multiple intermediaries.
Lucas explained that the stolen medical envelope contained the direct link.
Caroline had recorded an interview with Reeves shortly before her death.
In it, Reeves admitted falsifying evaluations for wealthy clients.
Mia asked the question everyone was avoiding.
“Who knew the envelope was in Boston?”
Lucas looked at Evelyn.
“Only three people.”
“Myself.”
“Adrian.”
“And the attorney who created the archive.”
Evelyn’s face tightened.
“That attorney died nine years ago.”
Lucas shook his head.
“No.”
“He changed his name.”
“Who was he?”
Before Lucas could answer, Daniel’s phone rang.
It was the police.
Julian Mercer had been found alive.
He was sitting on the steps of the city courthouse.
A bomb collar was locked around his neck.
May you like
And taped to his chest was a handwritten message.
SOPHIE MUST COME ALONE.
