Chapter 8 - The Woman Who Notices Everything
Ethan Mercer arrived at Damian’s penthouse at 8:03 in the morning with four security vehicles and enough armed men to make the street below nervous.
Only Mercer entered.
Marcus searched him personally.
Mercer allowed it.
That told me how desperate he was.
He was fifty-one, older than Damian, with iron-gray hair and the exhausted expression of a man who had not slept.
The newspapers usually photographed him smiling beside mayors and charity boards.
This morning there was nothing polished about him.
“My daughter’s name is Olivia,” he said before sitting down.
No greeting.
No posturing.
Just that.
“She’s twenty-four.”
Damian stood across the room.
“When was she taken?”
“Last night. Around eleven.”
“From where?”
“Her apartment.”
“Why didn’t you tell Leo?”
Mercer’s jaw tightened.
“Because Leo disappeared before I knew.”
“Convenient.”
Mercer’s temper flashed.
“My daughter is missing.”
“So is one of my nurses.”
Mercer looked at me.
“Mara Ellison.”
I went cold.
“You know my name.”
“I knew it before last night.”
Damian stepped slightly between us.
Mercer noticed.
Interesting.
“I’m not threatening her,” Mercer said.
“Then choose your words carefully.”
Mercer looked almost irritated.
“Northstar had her name.”
“How?”
“One of my people intercepted a partial list three weeks ago.”
“And you did nothing?”
“I didn’t know what it meant.”
“You sent Leo to grab her.”
“I sent Leo to question her.”
Damian’s expression sharpened.
“You make that distinction again and I will throw you through that window.”
Mercer looked toward the glass forty-seven floors above Boston.
“I believe you.”
I crossed my arms.
“Why was I on the list?”
Mercer looked at me.
“I don’t know.”
“Not good enough.”
He smiled faintly.
“You really do talk to him like that.”
“Everyone keeps saying that as though it’s surprising.”
“For Damian Cross? It is.”
Damian looked annoyed.
“Can we continue?”
Mercer placed a folder on the table.
Inside were photographs of Olivia.
One showed her leaving a restaurant.
Another entering her building.
A third came from surveillance footage near Logan Airport.
She was walking beside Rebecca.
I grabbed the photo.
“Rebecca.”
The timestamp showed 2:14 a.m.
After Rebecca had supposedly been taken to Dr. Keane’s property.
“They were together,” I said.
Mercer nodded.
“Airport tunnel camera.”
“But the sedan went toward Cambridge.”
“It doubled back.”
Marcus leaned closer.
“Who pulled this?”
“My people.”
“Any later footage?”
“No.”
I studied the image.
Rebecca’s face was turned slightly toward Olivia.
Olivia looked frightened.
Rebecca did not.
That bothered me.
“Zoom.”
Marcus enlarged it.
Rebecca’s left hand was visible.
Two fingers extended.
Then tucked against her palm.
A strange gesture.
“What?” Damian asked.
“Nothing yet.”
I kept staring.
Rebecca and I had worked trauma shifts together for two years.
During emergencies, we used hand signals when rooms were too loud.
Two fingers.
Then closed palm.
I knew it.
Two patients. One critical.
But there were no patients in the photograph.
Unless Rebecca had adapted the signal.
Two people.
One in immediate danger.
“Rebecca knew cameras were watching.”
“How?” Mercer asked.
“Because she’s signaling.”
“What does it mean?”
I pointed.
“Two people. One critical.”
Mercer stared at Olivia.
“My daughter?”
“Maybe.”
Damian looked at the photo.
“What else?”
I inspected Rebecca’s clothing.
Her scarf was missing because we found it at Keane’s house.
Her coat was buttoned unevenly.
One shoe looked darker than the other.
No.
Not darker.
Wet.
“Where is this camera?”
Marcus checked.
“Lower airport service tunnel.”
“Could she have walked through water?”
“Not normally.”
I looked at Rebecca’s trousers.
Mud near the hem.
“Before the airport, they were somewhere wet.”
Mercer scoffed.
“It’s Boston.”
“Not rain.”
“How do you know?”
“Her coat is dry.”
Damian leaned closer.
“Harbor?”
“Maybe.”
Marcus began mapping routes.
I returned to the photograph.
Olivia’s wrist.
A red mark.
Medical tape.
“She had an IV.”
Mercer stood abruptly.
“What?”
I pointed.
“Someone placed an intravenous line recently.”
“How can you tell?”
“Adhesive residue.”
His face changed.
“What did they give her?”
“I don’t know.”
Damian looked at me.
“You said one critical.”
“Yes.”
“Could Rebecca mean Olivia was drugged?”
“Possibly.”
Mercer looked ready to break something.
I understood Damian’s earlier fear now.
Power meant very little when the person you cared about was missing.
“Sit down,” I said.
Mercer stared at me.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You pacing won’t make her safer.”
His eyes narrowed.
Damian’s mouth twitched.
Mercer looked at him.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You enjoyed it.”
“Immensely.”
For one surreal second, they looked less like rival crime bosses and more like two exhausted men annoyed by each other.
Then Marcus found something.
“Service tunnel connects to private aviation cargo.”
Mercer moved closer.
“Flights?”
“Several departures overnight.”
“Passenger manifests?”
“Private flights often incomplete.”
“Destinations?”
“New York. Montreal. Miami.”
My stomach tightened.
“Any medical transport?”
Marcus searched.
“One.”
Everyone turned.
“Destination?”
“Not listed.”
“Owner?”
He paused.
“Northstar Aviation LLC.”
Silence.
Mercer swore.
“Departure?”
“Scheduled 3:00 a.m.”
“Did it leave?”
Marcus checked.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Mechanical hold.”
My pulse jumped.
“Where is it now?”
“Private hangar.”
Mercer was already moving.
Damian stopped him.
“You walk in with twenty men, whoever has them panics.”
Mercer turned.
“You have a better idea?”
Damian looked at me.
“No.”
I understood before he said anything.
“Oh, absolutely not.”
Mercer looked between us.
“What?”
Damian’s eyes remained on me.
“You’re medical staff.”
“No.”
“You have Crosswell identification.”
“No.”
“You can approach an aircraft under the excuse of emergency clearance.”
“No.”
Mercer’s eyebrows rose.
“You suggested using yourself as bait six hours ago,” Damian reminded me.
“I am allowed to evolve.”
“We stay close.”
“How close?”
“Thirty seconds.”
“That’s not close.”
“Fifteen.”
“I hate all of you.”
Mercer looked almost impressed.
Twenty-five minutes later, I was wearing scrubs beneath a dark medical jacket, walking toward a private hangar with a clipboard in my hand and my heart trying to escape through my throat.
A security guard stood outside.
“Can I help you?”
“Crosswell medical services. We received a request to clear a patient for air transport.”
He frowned.
“No patient here.”
I looked at the clipboard.
“Northstar Aviation?”
His face changed.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
But I noticed.
He knew the name.
“Wrong hangar.”
I smiled apologetically.
“Which one?”
“No idea.”
I glanced past him.
Inside the hangar sat a white Gulfstream.
No visible passengers.
Then I heard it.
Three knocks.
Pause.
Two knocks.
Coming from inside.
Rebecca.
At the clinic, three-two was our signal when we needed security without alarming a patient.
I looked toward the guard.
“Sorry about the confusion.”
I turned away.
My fingers touched the small transmitter inside my pocket.
One press.
Damian’s team moved.
The guard barely had time to react before Marcus and two men appeared.
Mercer came from the opposite side.
Damian reached me first.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
I pointed.
“Plane.”
They opened the cabin.
Empty.
Three knocks again.
Below.
Cargo compartment.
Marcus forced the hatch.
Inside, we found Rebecca.
Alive.
Her hands bound.
She was conscious.
“Mara.”
I dropped beside her.
“Where’s Olivia?”
Rebecca’s eyes filled.
“They took her.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who?”
“Keane.”
I checked her pupils.
“Did he drug you?”
“Sedative. I’m okay.”
“Why were you with Olivia?”
Rebecca struggled to sit.
“They made me stabilize her.”
Mercer crouched.
“What happened to my daughter?”
Rebecca looked at him.
“They gave her something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
Her voice shook.
“She started having trouble breathing.”
Mercer went white.
“Where did they take her?”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
“I heard Keane say one thing before they moved her.”
“What?”
“He said they had to get her to the original facility.”
Damian leaned closer.
“What facility?”
Rebecca looked at him.
“The place your father built before Crosswell.”
Damian became still.
He looked toward Victor.
Victor’s face changed.
“There was a clinic.”
“Where?”
“Alexander closed it fifteen years ago.”
“Where?”
Victor swallowed.
“Under the old Cross shipping terminal.”
Damian turned toward Marcus.
But Rebecca grabbed my wrist.
“Wait.”
“What?”
She looked terrified.
“Pierce isn’t running Northstar.”
“Then who is?”
“I heard him talking to someone.”
“Who?”
Rebecca’s fingers tightened around mine.
“Someone Damian trusts.”
I looked toward him.
“Name.”
She shook her head.
“I never saw him.”
“Voice?”
“No.”
“Anything?”
Rebecca closed her eyes, searching memory.
Then she whispered:
“He called Damian his son.”
The hangar went silent.
Damian Cross stared at her.
May you like
His father had been dead for eight years.
Yet somebody inside Northstar was still speaking as though Damian belonged to him.
