Part 9
She wanted to leave.
Instead, she stayed.
“What did Edwin mean when he said you should destroy it?” she asked.
“The treatment log. I refused.”
“Where is it?”
“In a safe-deposit box.”
“Who else knows?”
“Edwin. Me. Possibly Miriam.”
“Did she contact you?”
Adrian looked toward the windows.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“What did she want?”
“She asked whether Edwin had found the original trial archive.”
“And?”
“I said I didn’t know.”
“Was that true?”
“At the time.”
“Where is the archive?”
“I still don’t know.”
Celeste stood. “You should have told the sheriff.”
“I did this morning.”
“After Lena mentioned the argument.”
“Yes.”
“Why wait?”
“Because I was protecting myself.”
At least he did not name it something nobler.
Edwin disappeared from intensive care at four seventeen that afternoon.
A nurse entered his room to check his blood pressure and found the bed empty, the monitor leads disconnected, and his hospital gown folded over the chair.
His clothes had been delivered by an unidentified orderly fifteen minutes earlier.
The stairwell camera captured Edwin wearing dark scrubs and leaning heavily on a cane. A surgical mask concealed most of his face. He left through a loading entrance and entered a gray sedan.
The license plate had been stolen from a car in the visitors’ garage.
Celeste watched the footage in Sheriff Rusk’s temporary command room at the mansion.
“He could barely stand,” she said.
“He had help,” Rusk replied.
“Or he was taken.”
“The footage shows no visible force.”
“He was drugged less than eighteen hours ago.”
“And still had enough judgment to disguise himself.”
Celeste folded her arms tightly. “Why would he run?”
Rusk tapped the ledger. “Perhaps he feared the attacker would try again. Perhaps he feared arrest. Perhaps both.”
“You think he stole from the foundation.”
“I think he recorded the theft.”
“That is not the same.”
“No.”
“Then why would he flee?”
Rusk turned the security footage back to the moment Edwin entered the sedan. “Because people do not keep secret ledgers unless official records are dangerous to someone.”
The sedan was found abandoned near a marina two hours later.
A ferry employee remembered an older man in a mask boarding the five o’clock boat to Bellweather Island. No one remembered seeing him leave the ferry at the other end.
Owen placed a map on the library table.
“Bellweather has thirty houses, most seasonal,” he said. “Two private docks, one public landing, no police station.”
“Does the family own property there?” Rusk asked.
Celeste answered before Owen could. “My father owned a research cottage on the north side.”
Beatrice, seated near the fireplace, looked up sharply.
“You told me it was sold,” Celeste said.
“It was transferred.”
“To whom?”
“A holding company.”
“Northlight?”
Beatrice did not answer.
Rusk rolled up the map. “We’re going.”
The crossing took forty minutes in a sheriff’s launch. Celeste sat beneath the canvas cover beside Rusk while wind tore loose strands of hair from her braid. Adrian came because Edwin might require medical care. Owen came because he knew the property systems.
Beatrice was ordered to remain at the mansion.
She objected until Rusk threatened to post a deputy inside her bedroom.
Bellweather Island appeared through the evening haze as a dark line of pines and stone bluffs. The public landing was empty.
The research cottage stood a mile inland behind a rusted gate. It was larger than Celeste remembered, a long cedar building with black windows and a collapsed greenhouse attached to one side.
Owen cut the chain.
Inside, dust coated the furniture, but fresh footprints crossed the floor.
Adrian knelt beside one print. “Hospital tread.”
They followed the trail through a narrow hall to a room lined with metal cabinets.
Edwin sat on the floor against the far wall.
His mask hung loose beneath his chin. Sweat darkened his silver hair. One hand clutched a leather document case to his chest.
Celeste moved toward him.
“Stop,” Rusk said.
Edwin opened his eyes.
“You came,” he whispered.
“Who brought you here?” Rusk asked.
Edwin looked toward the door behind them.
A sound came from the greenhouse.
Glass crunching under a shoe.
Rusk drew his weapon. “Sheriff’s department. Show your hands.”
A dark figure crossed behind the broken panes.
Owen ran toward the side exit.
“Don’t,” Rusk snapped.
Too late.
The figure shoved through the greenhouse door and struck Owen with the black medical case. He fell against a workbench. Adrian pulled Celeste behind a cabinet as Rusk pursued.
The hooded figure fled through the greenhouse and into the trees.
Rusk followed, shouting for them to stop.
For several seconds, only the wind moved.
Adrian reached Owen first. Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow, but he was conscious.
“I’m fine,” Owen muttered.
“You are bleeding on your shoes,” Adrian said. “That is rarely a sign of fine.”
Celeste knelt beside Edwin.
His grip tightened around the document case.
“Why did you leave the hospital?”
“Couldn’t trust them.”
“Who?”
“Anyone.”
“That is not an answer.”
His eyes filled with exhausted anger. “You want answers now?”
She recoiled.
“You signed whatever I put in front of you,” he said. “Year after year.”
“I trusted you.”
“You outsourced trust.”
The words hurt because they resembled Adrian’s.
Edwin coughed and pressed one hand to his chest.
Adrian moved closer. “He needs a hospital.”
“No hospital,” Edwin said.
“You nearly died.”
“So did others.”
He opened the document case.
Inside were clinical files, laboratory photographs, payment records, and a portable hard drive.
Celeste lifted one photograph. It showed a young woman seated in a hospital bed, her right hand bandaged, her face turned away.
Miriam Saye.
Behind the photograph, someone had written: Exposure incident, Lot 6B.
“What is this?” Celeste asked.
“The real archive,” Edwin said. “Your father kept it here.”
“Why?”
“Insurance.”
“Against whom?”
“Everyone.”
Rusk returned alone, breathing hard.
“Lost them near the north bluff. There’s a vehicle track toward the private dock.”
“Boat?” Owen asked.
May you like
“Gone.”
Edwin laughed faintly. “Always a boat.”
