Chapter 3 - WHAT LENA HID INSIDE THE RABBIT
Gideon watched the footage six times.
Each viewing made denial more difficult.
Adrian Cross had been beside him at Juniper’s funeral.
Adrian had held Gideon upright when the tiny white coffin disappeared beneath December earth.
Adrian had managed Vale Group for three months afterward because Gideon had been incapable of entering the office.
Adrian was not merely an employee.
He was family.
“Could it be someone else?” Gideon asked.
Marcus did not insult him with reassurance.
“No.”
Gideon stared through the hospital-room glass at Norah.
“Where is Cross?”
“His assistant says Aspen.”
“Call him.”
“At one thirty in the morning?”
“Especially at one thirty.”
Adrian answered on the fourth ring.
“Gideon?”
Sleepy voice.
Too perfect.
“Where are you?”
“Aspen.”
“Doing what?”
“Sleeping until a psychopath called me.”
Gideon almost wanted to believe him.
“Video call.”
Silence.
“What?”
“Turn on your camera.”
“Gideon, have you been drinking?”
“Camera.”
Adrian laughed nervously.
Then the call disconnected.
Marcus said nothing.
Gideon called again.
Straight to voicemail.
“Find him.”
Marcus nodded.
“And nobody touches Norah.”
“Understood.”
Gideon returned to the room.
Norah had awakened.
She watched him from beneath a hospital blanket.
“Are you mad?”
“Yes.”
“At me?”
The question struck him.
“No.”
“You look mad.”
“I am.”
“Who are you mad at?”
“A grown-up who may have done something bad.”
Norah became very still.
“Does he have shiny shoes?”
Gideon sat.
“What?”
“The bad man.”
“What bad man?”
Norah pulled the blanket toward her chin.
“The one Mama was scared of.”
Gideon kept his voice calm.
“What did he look like?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see his face?”
She nodded.
“Would you recognize him?”
Another nod.
“Was it the man who put your mother into the car?”
Norah’s eyes widened.
“You saw?”
“Yes.”
“Did Mama tell you?”
“No.”
“The camera did.”
Norah thought about that.
Then whispered, “Mama said cameras remember things when people lie.”
Gideon felt cold.
“What else did your mother say?”
Norah hugged Clover.
“She said if she didn’t come back, I should give Bunny to someone safe.”
“Who?”
“She didn’t say.”
Gideon looked at the rabbit.
“Is there something inside Clover?”
Norah immediately pulled it away.
“No.”
A terrible lie.
Gideon softened his voice.
“I won’t take her.”
Norah stared at him.
“My daughter had a bear.”
The words escaped before he decided to say them.
Norah’s expression changed.
“You have a daughter?”
“Had.”
She understood far too quickly.
“She died?”
“Yes.”
“How old?”
“Five.”
Norah looked down.
“What was her name?”
“Juniper.”
“That’s a tree.”
“Yes.”
“Did she like rabbits?”
“Dinosaurs.”
Norah considered this.
“Dinosaurs are good too.”
Gideon smiled despite himself.
“She thought so.”
“What happened?”
“She got sick.”
“Did you hold her?”
His throat closed.
“Yes.”
“When she died?”
“Yes.”
Norah moved closer.
Then she did something nobody had done in three years.
She hugged him because he had lost Juniper.
Not because he was wealthy.
Not because she wanted something.
A seven-year-old child simply decided his grief looked lonely.
“I’m sorry your Juniper died.”
Gideon closed his eyes.
“Thank you.”
Norah pulled away.
Then carefully turned Clover around.
Along the rabbit’s back was the pink stitching Gideon had noticed earlier.
“Mama sewed this yesterday.”
She picked at the thread.
Gideon stopped her.
“Wait.”
“Why?”
“If your mother hid something, we should have police here.”
Norah shook her head violently.
“No police.”
“Why?”
“Mama said not yet.”
“Why?”
“She said the bad man has friends with badges.”
Gideon looked toward Marcus.
That changed everything.
They contacted Detective Evelyn Shaw, a homicide investigator Marcus trusted personally, not through normal dispatch.
Shaw arrived forty minutes later.
She was forty-eight, blunt, exhausted, and unimpressed by billionaires.
She photographed Clover before opening the seam.
Inside was not a weapon.
Not money.
A flash drive.
And a small brass key.
Norah stared.
“What’s that?”
Gideon answered honestly.
“We don’t know.”
Shaw bagged both.
“We’ll examine them through an isolated system.”
“No department network,” Gideon said.
Shaw looked at him.
“I know how corruption works, Mr. Vale.”
He nodded.
“My apologies.”
“You apologize surprisingly often for a millionaire.”
“I’ve had practice tonight.”
At 4:20 a.m., they opened the drive.
Folders.
Hundreds.
Vale Group invoices.
Medical records.
Insurance payments.
Internal emails.
Shaw frowned.
“What was Lena Mercer’s job?”
Marcus had already investigated.
“Senior claims analyst at Meridian Health Assurance.”
Gideon knew the company.
Vale Group owned thirty-eight percent.
His stomach dropped.
They opened a spreadsheet.
Patient names.
Treatment authorization codes.
Denials.
Payments routed through shell companies.
Then one name appeared.
JUNIPER VALE.
Gideon stopped breathing.
Shaw looked at him.
“Your daughter?”
“Yes.”
The room became silent.
Juniper’s medical records filled the screen.
Experimental therapy approval.
Then cancellation.
A physician recommendation.
Then an insurance denial.
Gideon remembered.
The treatment had been available in Switzerland.
His team had told him Juniper was medically ineligible.
But the file said otherwise.
She had qualified.
The approval had been reversed internally.
The authorization carried one executive signature.
Adrian Cross.
Gideon stood so quickly the chair fell.
Marcus caught his arm.
“Sir.”
“My daughter could have received treatment.”
Shaw said carefully, “We don’t know whether it would have saved her.”
“He stopped it.”
“We don’t know why.”
Gideon stared at Adrian’s signature.
Three years of grief changed shape.
Until that moment, Gideon had blamed biology.
God.
Chance.
Himself.
Now a human name sat beneath the worst day of his life.
Shaw opened another document.
A payment.
Twenty-two million dollars transferred days after Juniper’s death.
From Meridian Health Assurance.
To a company controlled by Adrian.
“What the hell is this?” Marcus whispered.
Lena had discovered something enormous.
Not one fraudulent claim.
A system.
Terminal patients were being steered away from expensive treatments while money supposedly reserved for those treatments disappeared into shell corporations.
Juniper had been one of them.
Gideon’s phone rang.
Adrian.
Everyone froze.
Gideon answered.
“Where are you?”
Adrian sounded different now.
No pretending.
“You found the girl.”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“Gideon, listen to me.”
“You murdered my daughter.”
“No.”
“You canceled her treatment.”
“I did.”
Gideon’s hand shook.
“Why?”
“Because what you think you found is not what happened.”
“Then explain.”
“I can’t on the phone.”
“You have thirty seconds.”
Adrian breathed.
“Juniper’s treatment wasn’t canceled for money.”
“Twenty-five.”
“Gideon—”
“Twenty.”
“Her doctors discovered something.”
“Fifteen.”
“Something you were never told.”
Gideon stopped counting.
“What?”
Adrian whispered:
“Juniper didn’t die from her disease.”
May you like
Silence.
“She was poisoned.”
