Chapter 8 - The Missing Guard
Peter Lowe’s apartment was empty.
Bed made.
Closet half cleared.
Passport gone.
No blood.
No struggle.
He had planned to leave.
Marcus’s team found a storage locker near the airport registered under a false name.
Inside:
Cash.
Two passports.
A burner phone.
Hayes security uniforms.
And a black stone Yale style ring.
Norah stared at the evidence photograph.
“Too easy.”
Declan lay in a private recovery room.
Pale.
Angry at pain medication.
Norah sat across from him.
“You think the ring was planted.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Ryan identifies Adrian by a ring and suddenly the missing guard has an identical one in a locker.”
“Maybe Peter impersonated Adrian.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe Adrian gave it to him.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe Ryan is lying.”
“Definitely possible.”
Declan looked toward her.
“You are annoyingly cautious.”
“Your household shoots first.”
“It saves time.”
“Almost killed you.”
He conceded with a slight nod.
Peter’s burner phone contained messages.
Unknown contact:
CASE MOVES TONIGHT.
Peter:
DECLAN MEETING RYAN?
Unknown:
CONFIRMED.
Peter:
MARCUS?
Unknown:
KEEP HIM BLIND.
Peter:
ADRIAN?
Unknown:
USE HIS NAME IF NEEDED.
There.
Someone planned to frame Adrian.
Or planned for Peter to think that.
Another message:
VALE GIRL IN HOUSE?
Peter:
YES.
Unknown:
DO NOT TOUCH YET.
Norah went cold.
“Yet.”
Declan looked at her.
“I told you Elias warned us.”
“Us?”
“Whoever had the case.”
“You did not know the warning until tonight.”
“Someone else did.”
“Gray.”
“Possibly.”
The burner contact location traced only to public relay towers.
No easy identity.
Then one deleted photograph recovered from Peter’s phone.
Norah entering the Hayes kitchen on her first day.
Taken from the staff parking lot.
Someone had ordered surveillance before Declan put his own investigator on her.
Two different watchers.
One wanted to know if she arrived.
Declan wanted to know why.
Norah asked:
“Who hired me?”
“Staffing agency.”
“Who referred the opening to them?”
Declan called Vivian.
She checked records.
Hayes estate normally used Grand House Domestic.
Norah came through another agency.
Bellcrest Staffing.
Why?
Vivian said:
“Marcus approved a temporary second vendor because we were short staffed.”
Marcus was brought in.
He looked at the file.
“I do not remember approving this.”
Digital signature:
Marcus Shaw.
Hardware verification valid.
Not cloned.
Date:
Six weeks earlier.
Marcus stared.
“I signed a vendor batch.”
“Without reviewing every agency?” Declan asked.
“There were seventeen contracts.”
“One brought Norah.”
Marcus looked toward her.
“I did not know.”
“Maybe.”
Norah asked Bellcrest for the recruiter.
Melissa Dane.
She agreed to speak.
“How did you find Norah?”
“Referral list.”
“From whom?”
“Anonymous employer sourcing service.”
“Payment?”
“Three thousand dollar placement bounty.”
“To place a maid?”
Melissa nodded.
“Unusually high.”
“Why did you accept?”
“Because we get paid.”
“Who paid?”
A consulting company.
Graybridge Human Capital.
Norah almost laughed.
Gray.
Again.
Company created four months earlier.
Registered agent:
Paul Mercer.
No, we already used Ryan Mercer. Better not. The agent was Kevin Shaw.
Marcus’s younger brother.
Marcus went completely still.
“My brother has been dead for two years.”
Norah stared.
“Another dead person owning companies.”
Declan looked exhausted.
“Welcome to my family.”
Kevin Shaw died in a motorcycle accident.
Corporate filing used his old identity.
Someone had access to his documents.
Marcus became both more suspicious and more believable as a target.
“Who had Kevin’s records?” Norah asked.
Marcus answered:
“Me. Our mother. Hayes HR. Insurance.”
“Peter?”
“Possibly through security benefits.”
“Adrian?”
“No reason.”
“Vincent?”
“Through administration.”
Too many.
Then Ryan asked for another interview.
He had remembered something.
Norah went.
Declan insisted on sending Marcus with her.
She objected.
“His dead brother owns the company that recruited me.”
“That is why I want him where I can see him.”
Marcus said:
“Comforting.”
At the hospital, Ryan looked worse.
Fear, not injury.
“I remembered Gray’s voice.”
“What about it?”
“He used a phrase.”
“What phrase?”
“Do not make me ask twice.”
Norah waited.
Ryan swallowed.
“When we were married, I heard your mother say it on the phone.”
Norah froze.
“My mother?”
“Years ago.”
“To who?”
“I do not know.”
“You are saying Gray knew my mother?”
“I am saying once, Rebecca got a call and the man on the other end said those exact words.”
“That proves nothing.”
“I know.”
“What else?”
Ryan reached beneath his blanket.
Pulled out a folded piece of paper he had hidden from police.
Norah stared.
“Where did you get that?”
“Inside the silver case.”
“You took something.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“At the vault.”
He unfolded it.
Elias Vale’s handwriting.
One line.
SAMUEL GRAY IS NOT THE NAME YOU SHOULD FEAR.
Below it:
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, ASK REBECCA WHO PAID FOR NORAH’S SURGERY.
Norah’s breathing stopped.
“What surgery?”
Ryan looked confused.
“You tell me.”
May you like
Norah had no memory of any childhood surgery.
Continue to the next part: Elias left a warning about a surgery Norah does not remember having, and her mother apparently knew who secretly paid for it.
