Chapter 3 - The Secret Julian Left Behind
I called Eli immediately.
He answered on the fourth ring.
“Ren?”
“Are you home?”
A pause.
“Yeah.”
“Lock the door.”
Another pause.
“What happened?”
“Just do it.”
“Ren.”
“Please.”
That word worked.
I heard the deadbolt slide.
“Done.”
“Anybody contact you tonight?”
“No.”
“Anybody from the hospital?”
Silence.
Then:
“Actually, yeah.”
My stomach dropped.
“A guy called about moving my surgery up.”
“What guy?”
“He said he represented some private medical foundation.”
“Name?”
“I don't remember.”
“Eli.”
“Ren, what the hell is happening?”
I looked at Adrian.
He was already typing something into his phone.
“I don't know yet.”
That was the truth.
Adrian arranged security for Eli without asking my permission.
Normally I would have fought him.
That night, I didn't.
Then we examined Julian's flash drive.
Most files were encrypted.
One wasn't.
A video.
Julian Voss appeared on-screen.
He resembled Adrian enough that the relationship was obvious, but Julian smiled more easily.
Bishop sat beside him.
“If you're watching this,” Julian said, “I probably failed.”
Adrian became completely motionless.
Julian continued.
“For eight months, I've been tracking money disappearing from Voss-controlled companies. Not thousands. Millions.”
Documents appeared.
Shell companies.
Transfers.
Names.
“The theft isn't the problem. The problem is where the money goes.”
A list appeared.
Private security firms.
Political consultants.
Medical companies.
One name caught my attention.
Northstar Biologics.
I knew it.
They manufactured a device used in Eli's treatment.
Julian leaned toward the camera.
“Someone is building leverage. Medical debt. employee debt. legal debt. They're finding vulnerable people connected to this organization and buying their problems.”
I felt cold.
Adrian looked at me.
Rener hadn't discovered me accidentally.
Someone had selected me.
Because of Eli.
Julian continued.
“I don't know who is running it. Bishop was with me the night I found the first proof. If anything happens, check his tracking archive.”
The video ended.
Adrian whispered, “His death was ruled an accident.”
“How?”
“Car crash.”
“Was Bishop with him?”
“No.”
I looked at the dog.
“Maybe he was supposed to be.”
The damaged tracker suddenly made sense.
Bishop hadn't simply been monitored.
His movement history could contain evidence.
Someone had removed the collar because they wanted that evidence destroyed.
We spent the night recovering data from Julian's files.
At dawn, one document opened.
It contained a list of names.
Twenty-three people.
Some employees.
Some relatives.
Some contractors.
Beside each was a vulnerability.
Debt.
Custody dispute.
Medical treatment.
Addiction.
Immigration problems.
Then I found:
CALLAWAY, ELI — SURGICAL CANDIDATE.
My hands went numb.
Below it:
CALLAWAY, REN — TRAUMA ANIMAL SPECIALIST. HIGH EMPATHY RESPONSE. FINANCIAL PRESSURE. SUITABLE.
I pushed away from the table.
Adrian read it.
His expression darkened.
“They profiled you.”
“For what?”
“I don't know.”
I did.
Or I was beginning to.
“Bishop.”
Adrian looked at me.
“They needed someone to kill Bishop without making it look suspicious.”
A professional.
An outsider.
Someone desperate enough not to ask questions.
Me.
Rener had offered exactly what I couldn't refuse.
Then put the syringe in my hand.
If I'd done what he'd expected, the final witness to whatever happened eleven days ago would be dead.
Adrian stood.
“I want you off the estate.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“You and your brother leave today.”
“You think I'm walking away now?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Ren.”
It was the first time he'd used my first name.
“You've done enough.”
“That's not your decision.”
“It is while you're in my house.”
I stood too.
“You hired me for seventy-two hours.”
“I didn't hire you at all.”
“Fine. Then consider me volunteering.”
His jaw tightened.
“You don't understand the people involved.”
“Neither do you.”
That landed.
I softened my voice.
“Julian spent eight months trying to find them. Bishop nearly died because of them. My brother was turned into a line on somebody's leverage spreadsheet.”
Adrian stared at me.
“I’m staying.”
He looked furious.
Not with me.
With the fact that I had given him no argument he could use.
“Forty-eight hours,” he said.
“Seventy-two.”
“Forty-eight.”
“Sixty.”
His mouth twitched.
“Do you negotiate everything?”
“When I'm scared.”
That erased the almost-smile.
“You're scared?”
“Of course I am.”
“You don't act like it.”
“I work with frightened animals. Panicking rarely improves anything.”
He looked at me for a long time.
“Sixty hours.”
“Deal.”
By afternoon, we had reconstructed part of Bishop's tracking archive from a cloud backup Julian had created.
Eleven days earlier, Bishop had left the estate at 10:42 p.m.
Impossible.
Security footage showed him inside at 11:16.
“Cloned signal,” I said.
Someone had removed the tracker, taken it elsewhere, then returned without it.
The signal traveled fourteen miles.
Stopped for twenty-three minutes.
At an abandoned veterinary clinic.
Adrian knew the address.
His face changed when he saw it.
“What?”
“That clinic belonged to my father.”
We drove there before sunset.
Bishop came with us.
Inside, dust covered everything.
Old examination tables.
Empty cabinets.
Faded labels.
Bishop immediately began searching.
He led us downstairs.
At the bottom was a storage room.
Behind shelving, Adrian found a concealed door.
Inside were files.
Hundreds.
Photographs.
Employee records.
Bank statements.
Medical histories.
This wasn't Julian's operation.
It was older.
Much older.
Adrian opened one cabinet.
His face lost color.
“What?”
He handed me a photograph.
Rener.
Twenty years younger.
Standing beside Adrian's father.
And another man.
I recognized him.
Marcus Bell.
The employee Bishop had supposedly attacked.
They had known each other for decades.
Then Bishop began barking.
Not aggressive.
Urgent.
He scratched at another cabinet.
I opened it.
Inside was a collar transmitter.
The missing controller.
Adrian picked it up.
Someone had taped a note beneath it.
Three words:
MAKE THE DOG REACT.
We heard an engine outside.
Adrian killed the lights.
A vehicle stopped.
Doors opened.
Bishop pressed against my leg.
Footsteps crossed the floor above.
Then a familiar voice called into the darkness.
“Ren?”
I froze.
Adrian looked at me.
The voice came again.
“Ren, it's me.”
Impossible.
My hands started shaking.
Because the person standing upstairs wasn't Rener.
It wasn't Marcus.
It wasn't anyone from the Voss estate.
May you like
It was my brother.
“Eli?”
