Chapter 6 - Dead Man WalkingZ
The room seemed to spin around me. The air vanished from my lungs as Samuel’s words echoed through the high-ceilinged foyer.
The body in that car wasn't your husband.
“What... what are you talking about?” I stumbled back, my hand crashing into a side console table, knocking a glass vase to the floor. It shattered into a dozen glittering pieces. “I saw his watch! I saw his wedding ring! The police gave me his burnt wallet!”
“Planted,” Samuel said quickly, showing the decrypted autopsy file to Bruce. “Look at the coroner’s secondary notes. The victim in the car was an unidentified male, approximately ten years older than David, with previous surgical hardware in his left femur. David never broke a leg in his life. The coroner noted the discrepancy, but three hours after the report was filed, the file was sealed by order of the County Sheriff—who received a massive 'charitable donation' from the Crestview Foundation two days later.”
Bruce’s eyes burned like hot iron. “If David didn't die in that crash... where is he?”
“Or where did Agatha put him?” I whispered, my voice trembling violently as six years of grief, confusion, and agony suddenly threatened to tear me apart. “She lied to me. She made me live in that guest house like a prisoner! She made me raise our children believing their father was dead!”
“We don't have time to process this right now,” Claire Bennett shouted, rushing down the stairs holding her laptop. “Detective Ortiz’s five minutes are up! The DA just validated the magistrate's emergency custody order. They are preparing to breach the front door!”
Outside, the heavy thud of a battering ram struck the reinforced oak door. The frame groaned under the force.
“Bruce, you can’t fight the police,” Claire urged desperately. “If your security team uses force against uniformed officers, they will arrest all of us, and the state will automatically put the girls into child protective services!”
Bruce stood firm, his jaw clenched, looking at me, then at the front door as another heavy strike echoed through the foyer. CRACK.
“She’s right,” Bruce gritted out through his teeth. He turned to Samuel. “Take Gabrielle and the girls through the underground service tunnel to the garage behind the guest house. Take the armored SUV.”
“Where do I go?” I cried out, tears streaming down my face. “Where can I possibly hide from her?”
“You aren't hiding,” Bruce said, grabbing my shoulders and looking directly into my eyes with an intensity that made my heart race. “You’re going to the one place Agatha thinks she completely controls. You’re going to the Crestview Foundation main office in downtown Palm Springs. Leonard Voss’s USB drive contains the master passwords to their private server room in the basement. Everything—the offshore accounts, the real coroner’s report, the proof of David’s true fate—is backed up on their physical mainframe.”
“And what about you?” I asked, terrified of leaving him.
“I’m going to stay right here and let Detective Ortiz arrest me for obstruction,” Bruce gave a dangerous, confident smile. “It will buy you at least two hours while the media goes wild over my arrest. By the time Agatha realizes you aren't in this house, you’ll have her entire empire on a flash drive.”
“Bruce, no!”
“Go, Gabrielle! Protect our girls!”
CRACK! The heavy wooden door splintered open.
Samuel grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the rear staircase. I sprinted upstairs, snatched Olivia and Holly into my arms, and rushed them down the back service elevator into the cold, dimly lit concrete tunnel beneath the estate.
Ten minutes later, the heavy armored SUV roared out of the hidden garage exit, slicing through the rain-slicked side streets of Palm Springs, away from the flashing red and blue lights of the police cars surrounding Bruce’s estate.
In the backseat, Olivia held Holly close, while I sat in the passenger seat beside Samuel, staring at the encrypted files on his tablet. My mind was a storm of furious questions.
If David didn't die in that crash six years ago... was he murdered somewhere else? Or was he still alive, locked away in some dark corner of Agatha’s vast network of private medical facilities?
“Where are we going, Mom?” Olivia asked quietly from the back.
I turned around, looking at my two beautiful daughters. For six years, I had been weak. I had let Agatha control my life, my thoughts, my very identity out of fear and depression.
That woman was gone.
“We’re going to finish what your father started,” I told them, my voice surprisingly steady, filled with a newfound, lethal resolve.
The black glass tower of the Crestview Charitable Foundation rose into the stormy sky ahead of us. It looked like a monument to benevolence, but I knew the truth now. It was a fortress built on stolen money, forged identities, and blood.
Samuel parked the SUV in the underground executive garage, using a cloned security badge provided by Bruce’s network.
“I’ll sweep the security floor,” Samuel whispered, drawing a silenced firearm from his shoulder holster. “You get to the mainframe server room on B2. Once you plug the USB drive into the master terminal, Bruce’s remote IT team will mirror the entire system and send it directly to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
“Got it,” I said, taking the USB drive firmly in my hand.
We slipped out of the vehicle and moved stealthily toward the basement access doors. The building was empty—it was early morning, and the foundation’s public offices wouldn't open for another hour.
We reached the heavy steel door marked SERVER ROOM - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. I swiped the access code Leonard Voss had left on the encrypted drive.
BEEP. GREEN LIGHT.
The heavy lock disengaged, and the steel door slid open with a soft hiss, revealing rows of blinking blue server racks pumping cool air into the room.
I stepped inside, my pulse hammering in my ears. I walked up to the primary administration terminal, inserted the USB drive, and began typing the master administrative overrides.
The screen flashed rapidly:
ACCESS GRANTED: MASTER ARCHIVE UNLOCKED
DOWNLOADING: NIGHTINGALE HOLDING FINANCIAL LOGS...
DOWNLOADING: HALL CREST MEDICAL CONFIDENTIAL FILES...
Suddenly, a file popped up automatically on the central monitor, labeled in bright red text:
PATIENT STATUS: FACILITY 4 - RESTRICTED
My breath caught. I clicked the file.
A live security camera feed appeared on the screen.
The video showed a small, padded room inside a private medical facility. Sitting on the edge of a narrow bed, dressed in white hospital scrubs, was a man with graying hair, thin shoulders, and familiar brown eyes staring blankly at the wall.
May you like
It was David.
He was alive.
