Chapter 7 - THE MAN BESIDE HIM
Nobody moved.
Marcus stared at the screen.
Alexander stared at Marcus.
Samantha quietly stepped between them.
Marcus noticed.
“You believe it?”
“I believe Rebecca believed it.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Alexander’s voice was cold.
“Give me your weapon.”
Marcus looked at him.
“Alexander.”
“Your weapon.”
Marcus slowly removed it and placed it on the floor.
Then his phone.
Then a second weapon from his ankle.
Samantha raised an eyebrow.
“Anything else?”
“A folding knife.”
“Of course.”
He surrendered it.
Alexander’s expression was devastated.
Marcus had protected him for eleven years.
He had been there when Thomas Cole died.
He had carried Alexander from the wreckage nine months earlier.
“You saved me.”
Marcus nodded.
“Because I didn’t arrange your crash.”
“Rebecca named you.”
“She was wrong.”
“Why?”
Marcus looked toward the camera.
“Because someone wanted her to be.”
He asked them to replay the recording.
Samantha watched more carefully.
Rebecca repeatedly looked to her right.
Not fear of the camera.
Fear of someone behind it.
“Coerced,” Samantha said.
Marcus nodded.
“Probably.”
Alexander wasn’t convinced.
“Convenient.”
Marcus accepted the accusation.
Then Samantha noticed the timestamp.
“Wait.”
The recording had been created at 2:08 a.m.
The night of Alexander’s crash.
She turned to Marcus.
“Where were you at 2:08?”
“St. Catherine.”
Alexander remembered.
Marcus had arrived at the hospital shortly after the ambulance.
Hospital security footage confirmed it.
Marcus was standing outside Trauma Bay Four when Rebecca supposedly recorded the video fourteen miles away.
“Someone framed him,” Samantha said.
Marcus retrieved neither his gun nor phone.
“Rebecca was trying to leave us something.”
He pointed to the background.
A mirror reflected part of the room.
On a table sat a newspaper.
Beside it was a distinctive silver cufflink.
Alexander recognized it.
Jonathan Pierce wore identical ones.
Initials engraved on the edge.
JP.
They had him.
But Samantha shook her head.
“No.”
Alexander looked at her.
“What?”
“This is too easy.”
“Samantha—”
“Jonathan is guilty. I believe that. But your father said Jonathan had someone inside Cole Meridian.”
“Marcus?”
“No.”
She looked at the video.
“Someone wanted us to think Marcus.”
Alexander understood.
“The real insider is still hidden.”
They needed Rebecca.
Marcus searched every known alias.
Nothing.
Then Samantha remembered the hospital note.
Rebecca had asked about a domestic violence shelter.
St. Catherine routinely referred patients to several organizations.
One was outside Albany.
Marcus called discreetly.
No Rebecca Sloan.
Samantha asked a different question.
“Do you have a patient named Rachel Stone?”
Alexander looked at her.
“Why that name?”
“Rebecca kept saying she wished she could become a stone. Something nobody could move.”
The shelter director paused.
Then confirmed that a Rachel Stone had stayed there nine months earlier.
She had since moved.
But she had left a forwarding contact.
By evening, Rebecca was sitting across from them in a private attorney’s office.
She looked older.
Frightened.
When she saw Alexander, she cried.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I gave them your schedule.”
Alexander remained silent.
Rebecca explained.
Jonathan had threatened her younger brother, who owed money after a failed business.
She had been ordered to copy Alexander’s biometric credentials and provide his route.
“I thought they were stealing data.”
“When did you realize?”
“When Jonathan told me to disable the vehicle alert.”
Alexander closed his eyes.
“I tried to undo it.”
“You warned Marcus?”
“Yes.”
That explained how Marcus had reached the hospital so quickly.
“But someone caught me.”
“Jonathan?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
“Who?”
Before she could answer, the office lights went out.
Samantha reacted first.
“Floor!”
Glass shattered.
A shot struck the wall.
Marcus dragged Rebecca behind a desk.
Alexander covered Samantha.
Another shot.
Then silence.
Police arrived within minutes.
The shooter escaped.
But Rebecca was alive.
So was everyone else.
When emergency lights illuminated the office, Samantha realized Alexander’s hand was bleeding.
“Again?”
He looked at the shallow cut.
“This barely qualifies.”
“With you, I’m starting a punch card.”
Despite everything, Rebecca laughed.
The tension broke for one second.
Then she finished the story.
The person who had caught her disabling the sabotage was not Jonathan.
It was Cole Meridian’s general counsel.
Victoria Hale.
Alexander stared.
Victoria had worked with his father for twenty-three years.
She had handled Thomas Cole’s estate.
She had drafted Alexander’s succession documents.
She had attended every family Christmas.
“She’s the insider,” Marcus said.
Rebecca nodded.
“Jonathan handles the money. Victoria protects the operation.”
Samantha asked, “Who gives the orders?”
Rebecca looked confused.
“Victoria.”
“No. Who does Victoria answer to?”
“I don’t know.”
Samantha felt the same instinct she had felt in Trauma Bay Four nine months earlier.
Something was wrong.
The obvious answer was not the complete answer.
Alexander noticed.
“What are you thinking?”
“Your father discovered the operation fifteen years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Jonathan was young then.”
“Twenty-eight.”
“And Victoria was already general counsel.”
“Yes.”
“Your father was CEO. Why didn’t he simply fire her?”
Alexander stopped.
Samantha continued.
“Because he couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Maybe she had leverage.”
Marcus looked through old corporate files.
They found it at midnight.
Thomas Cole had not founded Cole Meridian alone.
There had been a silent investor.
A trust controlled through offshore companies.
Twenty-nine percent ownership.
Enough to create chaos if exposed.
The trust’s beneficiary had been hidden for decades.
Until Daniel Pierce had copied one document.
Marcus opened it.
Alexander read the name.
His face changed.
Samantha stepped closer.
“What?”
He turned the screen.
The beneficiary was not Jonathan Pierce.
Not Victoria Hale.
Not anyone Samantha knew.
But Alexander did.
“Who is he?”
Alexander’s voice became hollow.
“My uncle.”
Richard Cole.
Thomas Cole’s younger brother.
Officially dead for twelve years.
Samantha looked at him.
“How did he die?”
Alexander stared at the screen.
“Plane crash.”
Samantha almost laughed at the terrible pattern.
“Another accident?”
“No.”
May you like
Alexander’s eyes lifted.
“They never found his body.”
