Chapter 6 - The Blood on the Wall
Z
The FBI Regional Field Office in downtown Seattle felt cold, sterile, and oppressively bright. The harsh white fluorescent lights buzzed with a low, irritating hum that made my head throb. I sat in an interrogation room behind a heavy steel door, staring at a silver pot of stale coffee that no one had touched.
Across from me sat Special Agent Sarah Chen, a sharp-featured woman in her late thirties with severe dark hair pulled back into a tight bun, and a demeanor that suggested she hadn't smiled since 2012. Beside her was Marcus Vance, who had rushed to the field office the moment I called him from the highway.
"Let's go over it one more time, Ms. Bennett," Agent Chen said, tapping a yellow legal pad with the blunt end of a pen. "You confronted Rachel Morgan at Concourse S at 4:30 AM. She was taken into custody by Port Authority officers at 4:45 AM and placed in a holding cell in Terminal 2 while waiting for federal transport."
"Yes," I said, keeping my voice steady despite the nausea rolling in my stomach. "I was there. I saw her being handcuffed."
"And at 6:15 AM," Chen continued, leaning forward, "a guard went to perform a routine check. Rachel Morgan was dead. Cause of death appears to be acute potassium cyanide poisoning. The container was disguised as a standard asthma inhaler found in her purse."
I squeezed my hands together in my lap to hide their sudden trembling. Cyanide. This wasn't just corporate corruption anymore. This was cold-blooded murder.
"And the writing?" Marcus asked, his voice calm, professional, and protective. "Agent Chen, my client has been entirely cooperative. You mentioned something written on the wall."
Agent Chen pulled an eight-by-ten glossy photograph from a manila folder and slid it across the metal table toward me.
I forced myself to look.
The photograph showed the grey cinderblock wall of the airport holding cell. Written in dark, smeared crimson was a single word, followed by a set of numbers:
ETHAN - 1142
"The forensics team confirmed the fluid was Ms. Morgan's blood," Chen said, her sharp eyes watching my face for any sign of deception or terror. "We pulled your husband into custody forty minutes ago at his father's estate on Mercer Island. He's currently in Interrogation Room B, having a complete nervous breakdown. He claims he has no idea what '1142' means. Do you?"
I stared at the photograph. The numbers 1142 burned into my retinas.
Ethan didn't know what it meant because Ethan was a puppet. But as the Chief Financial Officer who had managed every deed, lease, and physical asset contract for Bennett & Associates for eleven years, I knew exactly what 1142 meant.
It wasn't a code. It wasn't a bank account.
It was a physical address.
1142 Eastlake Avenue East—a small, dilapidated brick warehouse on the eastern shore of Lake Union that our firm had purchased five years ago for "architectural model storage." I had signed the lease paperwork myself, but Ethan had insisted on keeping the physical keys in his private safe at the office.
"I don't know," I lied, looking directly into Agent Chen's eyes without blinking. "Ethan managed dozens of personal projects that I wasn't privy to."
Agent Chen narrowed her eyes, clearly not fully believing me, but she didn't have enough legal leverage to break my story. "Ms. Morgan didn't act like a woman preparing to commit suicide when she was arrested, Ms. Bennett. She was terrified. She told the arresting officers that if she went to jail, 'the family' would kill her. We believe someone slipped that poisoned inhaler into her belongings before she reached the airport."
"Arthur Bennett," Marcus offered smoothly. "Arthur has deep connections across the city's transport and law enforcement infrastructure. If anyone could reach a detainee in a Port Authority cell, it’s him."
Agent Chen sighed, leaning back in her chair. "Arthur Bennett is currently refusing to speak without his criminal defense team present. His lawyers are already filing motions to block the search warrants on his City Hall office. We are in a legal gridlock."
"Am I free to go, Agent Chen?" I asked, pushing the photograph back across the table. "I have a company to protect and twenty-five employees whose lives are currently in limbo."
Chen stared at me for a long, uncomfortable moment before slowly nodding. "You're free to go, Ms. Bennett. But don't leave the state. And I suggest you get private security. Whoever killed Rachel Morgan isn't finished tying up loose ends."
"I already have security," I said, glancing at Marcus.
Twenty minutes later, Marcus and I stepped out of the federal building into the grey, cold Seattle drizzle. The city felt entirely different now—dangerous, shadowy, full of hidden teeth ready to sink into me.
"You lied to the FBI agent," Marcus said quietly as we walked toward his black SUV parked in the loading zone. "You know what 1142 means, don't you?"
"It's our warehouse on Eastlake Avenue," I admitted, getting into the passenger seat. "Rachel didn't write Ethan's name as an accusation of murder, Marcus. She wrote it as a message to whoever found her body. Ethan was the only one who had the primary key to that facility."
"We need to call Agent Chen and let the FBI raid the warehouse, Olivia," Marcus urged, stepping into the driver's seat and turning the ignition. "If Rachel was murdered with cyanide, whoever is guarding 1142 Eastlake isn't going to hand over evidence with a polite smile."
"If the FBI raids that warehouse, Arthur’s high-priced lawyers will file an emergency injunction to seal the property under corporate litigation," I argued fiercely, turning to face him. "The evidence inside will disappear or be rendered inadmissible before it ever sees a courtroom. This is my only chance to get absolute, unassailable proof of who really ordered the hit on Rachel—and who was pulling Arthur's strings."
Marcus looked at me for a long moment, seeing the determination in my eyes. He let out a heavy sigh, reached under his jacket, and unholstered a sleek, black Glock 19 pistol, checking the magazine before snapping it back into place.
"I don't get paid enough for this, Olivia," he muttered, shifting the SUV into drive. "We go in, we spend ten minutes maximum looking for whatever is hidden there, and if things look sideways, we leave immediately. Understood?"
"Understood," I said.
We drove through the rain-slicked streets of Seattle toward Lake Union. The grey waters of the lake looked like liquid lead under the overcast sky.
When we pulled up to 1142 Eastlake Avenue, the dilapidated red-brick building looked completely abandoned. Overgrown ivy crawled up the cracked brick walls, and the windows were covered in heavy steel shutters. A rusted iron padlock secured the heavy sliding front door.
Marcus pulled a set of professional lockpicks from his pocket, stepped out into the mist, and made quick work of the padlock. The iron latch snapped open with a sharp clack.
We pushed the heavy door open and stepped into the pitch-black interior of the warehouse.
The air inside smelled strongly of damp concrete, old paper, and engine oil. Marcus clicked on a powerful tactical flashlight, sweeping the beam across the vast, dusty space.
Stacks of old architectural blueprints, wooden scale models of Seattle skyscrapers, and broken office furniture filled the room. But in the far back corner, sitting behind a false wall of drywall and insulation, was something that didn't belong in an architectural storage unit.
A pristine, high-tech server rack, humming softly in the dark, its blue LED lights blinking like cold, mechanical eyes.
And sitting on a steel folding chair right in front of the server rack was a figure wearing a dark hoodie, typing rapidly on a glowing laptop.
When the flashlight beam hit the figure, they slowly closed the laptop, stood up, and pulled down their hood.
My breath caught in my throat.
It wasn't a thug. It wasn't one of Arthur's lawyers.
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It was Sarah Vance—our firm’s head of interior design. The woman who had sat at the welcome dinner last night and cursed Rachel Morgan for stealing her department's budget.
"Hello, Olivia," Sarah said, her voice eerily calm as she reached into her jacket pocket. "I was wondering how long it would take you to solve Rachel's little bloody clue."
