Chapter 4 - Fire Behind the Locked Door
Adrian kicked the door.
Nothing.
Again.
The electronic lock remained engaged.
Smoke thickened.
Martha coughed.
Maxwell was trapped in his wheelchair.
“Ventilation shaft,” Adrian said.
“Too small.”
Martha looked around.
Fire alarms screamed.
Someone wasn’t merely destroying evidence.
They were trying to destroy witnesses.
She grabbed a fire extinguisher.
Adrian smashed it against the lock housing.
Sparks flew.
Nothing.
Maxwell rolled backward.
“Move.”
“What?”
“Move!”
He accelerated the heavy wheelchair toward the door.
The metal footrest struck the weakened lock.
Once.
Twice.
On the third impact, the frame cracked.
Adrian kicked.
The door burst open.
Smoke filled the corridor.
They escaped.
The fire was extinguished twenty minutes later.
Only the security room had burned.
Every restored file was gone.
Except one.
Martha had taken a photograph of the screen with her phone.
Vale.
Julian.
Celia.
The syringe.
Maxwell stared at the image.
“Send it somewhere safe.”
“To whom?”
“Someone outside this house.”
Martha thought of her sister in Vermont.
“No. I won’t put family in danger.”
Maxwell studied her.
“You’re smarter than most people who worked for me.”
“Maybe that’s why they usually fire me.”
For the first time, he almost smiled.
Almost.
They moved Maxwell to a guest room on the first floor.
Martha checked his skin for burns from the bath.
There were red patches along his thigh.
“You could have been seriously injured.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“That doesn’t make this acceptable.”
He watched her work.
“Why did you lose your nursing job?”
Martha stopped.
“You investigated me?”
“I investigate everyone.”
She resumed applying ointment.
“A medication mistake.”
“Yours?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“A patient nearly died.”
“Nearly?”
“He survived.”
“And you never forgave yourself.”
Martha looked at him.
“That isn’t your business.”
“No.”
Maxwell paused.
“But maybe somebody hired you because they knew you’d doubt yourself.”
That thought stayed with her.
Later, Martha searched her employment paperwork.
Celia had recruited her through an agency.
But when Martha called the agency, the woman on the phone sounded confused.
“We never placed you at Rourke House.”
Martha’s blood went cold.
“What?”
“We have your old application, but no placement.”
“Then who contacted me?”
“I don’t know.”
Martha hung up.
She found Maxwell.
“Someone created my job.”
His expression sharpened.
“Explain.”
She did.
Maxwell immediately called Adrian.
They traced the phone number used to recruit Martha.
Prepaid.
Unregistered.
But the payment for the phone came from a corporate card.
Rourke Medical Holdings.
Julian’s division.
Maxwell went quiet.
“So Julian hired you.”
“Why?”
“To test me?”
“Or expose you.”
Martha paced.
“But why choose someone with rehabilitation experience?”
“Because he wanted you to notice.”
She stopped.
“Then why try to kill us?”
“Because you noticed too much.”
A soft knock came from the hallway.
A young housemaid stood outside.
Her name was Rosa.
She looked terrified.
“Mr. Rourke?”
“Yes?”
“I need to tell you something.”
She glanced behind her.
“Miss Delaney has been putting something in your evening tea.”
Martha’s stomach dropped.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. I saw her tonight.”
“What?”
“A little bottle.”
Rosa began crying.
“She said it was medicine.”
“Where is the tea?”
“In the kitchen.”
Martha ran.
The cup was still there.
She poured a sample into a clean glass jar.
Maxwell stared at it.
“Can you identify it?”
“Not without a lab.”
Adrian spoke from the doorway.
“I know someone.”
Three hours later, the answer arrived.
A muscle relaxant.
A powerful one.
Repeated doses could dramatically suppress movement.
Maxwell looked down at his legs.
For fourteen months, he had believed his body had betrayed him.
Now a different possibility emerged.
His recovery hadn’t stopped.
Someone had been stopping it.
May you like
And the people responsible lived under his roof.
