Chapter 11 - The Hotel Attack
The alarm began before Ruiz finished the sentence.
Security lights flashed red along the hallway.
Marcus grabbed Lena and moved her toward the bathroom safe room.
I followed.
Rachel came behind us.
A crash sounded downstairs.
Then another.
Ruiz shouted into his radio, “Lock the elevators!”
Someone had planned this carefully.
The SUV at the barrier was a distraction.
The real entry came through the service elevator.
A man in a maintenance uniform stepped onto our floor carrying a toolbox.
The hallway camera caught his face.
Dr. Samuel Reeves.
Seventy-two years old and moving faster than any frightened old man should.
He reached our door before police reached the floor.
Marcus held his weapon steady.
“Stop.”
Reeves raised both hands.
“I’m not here to hurt anyone.”
“Then get on the floor.”
“I have something Ethan needs.”
I stayed behind the doorway.
“What?”
“The original sample.”
He opened the toolbox slowly.
Inside were medical storage tubes packed in a portable cold case.
Ruiz arrived and cuffed him immediately.
Reeves did not resist.
He looked at me.
“Daniel is going to kill Evelyn.”
My stomach dropped.
“Why?”
“Because she kept the only document that proves he knew the truth before taking control of the trust.”
“Where is she?”
“At her house, unless he moved her already.”
Police raced there.
We arrived twenty minutes later.
The front door was open.
A lamp had been knocked over.
My mother’s phone lay crushed in the foyer.
Upstairs, her bedroom was empty.
On the mirror, written in red lipstick, were two words.
ASK CLAIRE.
I turned.
Claire was still in police custody across town.
Or she was supposed to be.
Ruiz checked his phone.
His expression changed.
May you like
“Claire escaped transport twelve minutes ago.”
