Chapter 5 - The Message in the Mirror
The hospital security footage showed a nurse entering Elara’s room at 2:17 a.m.
The nurse wore a mask and carried a tray.
Seven minutes later, she left pushing a wheelchair.
Elara sat beneath a blanket, her head lowered as though asleep.
The nurse’s badge was false.
The surveillance cameras went dark thirty seconds later.
Eleanor had taken Elara again.
Damian stood inside the empty hospital room, staring at the impression her body had left on the pillow.
On the bedside table sat the coat he had wrapped around her at the mansion.
She had been afraid.
She had asked him to come back.
And now she was gone.
Robert entered carefully.
“We found the protection officer alive in a supply closet. Drugged, not seriously injured.”
“Who authorized the nurse?”
“Someone used Celeste’s old access codes.”
“Celeste is in police custody.”
“She may have activated a contingency plan before her arrest.”
Damian turned toward the bathroom.
Steam still clouded part of the mirror.
Words had been written across the glass with a fingertip.
DON’T TRUST MARCUS.
Damian stared at the message.
“Elara wrote that,” he said.
“How can you be certain?”
“She underlines the letter T when she’s frightened.”
Robert examined the writing.
Damian returned to Marcus’s hospital room.
His attorney was being treated for the injury he had suffered at the hangar.
Marcus had served Damian for twelve years. He had managed family trusts, negotiated acquisitions, and coordinated the international search for Elara.
He also knew every movement Damian made.
Marcus opened his eyes.
“You found her?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
Damian pulled a chair beside the bed.
“How did Eleanor know about the operation?”
Marcus looked confused.
“She has people everywhere.”
“Elara left me a message.”
Marcus’s expression changed for only a fraction of a second.
It was enough.
Damian leaned forward.
“How long have you worked for my mother?”
Marcus sat up slowly.
“Damian—”
“How long?”
The door opened behind Damian.
Robert entered with two officers.
Marcus looked toward the window.
“We should talk privately.”
“We’re past privacy.”
Marcus exhaled.
“Your mother paid for my education. She placed me inside the company before you became chief executive.”
Damian felt nothing at first.
The betrayal was too large to process.
“You handled the investigation into Elara’s disappearance.”
“Yes.”
“You sent me across Europe chasing false leads.”
“Yes.”
“You stood beside me while I identified bodies.”
Marcus looked away.
“I never wanted Elara hurt.”
“You made certain I didn’t find her.”
“I was told she was being kept comfortable in a private facility.”
Damian grabbed Marcus by the hospital gown.
“She was starved and beaten.”
“I didn’t know!”
“You knew enough.”
The officers pulled Damian back.
Marcus breathed heavily.
“Eleanor will kill them both unless you give her what she wants.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know the current location.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed.
“But you know how to contact her.”
Marcus hesitated.
Robert placed a phone on the bed.
“Call her.”
“She’ll know I’ve been compromised.”
“Then convince her you escaped.”
Marcus looked at Damian.
“She’ll demand proof.”
“What proof?”
“That I still control you.”
Damian understood.
Marcus needed to deliver something valuable.
He opened his briefcase and removed an encrypted drive containing the emergency authorization keys for Hawthorne Global’s international accounts.
To anyone else, the drive appeared genuine.
Only Damian and Robert knew it had been altered.
Once connected to Eleanor’s system, it would transmit her location.
Marcus called a number from memory.
Eleanor answered after one ring.
“Where are you?”
“The police moved me to a hospital,” Marcus said. “I got away from the officer outside my room.”
“You failed at the hangar.”
“Damian brought a second team I didn’t know about.”
Silence.
“I have his emergency authorization drive,” Marcus continued. “The one connected to the Singapore and Zurich reserves.”
Eleanor’s interest sharpened.
“Bring it to the old St. Catherine’s orphanage before sunrise.”
The call ended.
Police prepared an operation.
Marcus would carry the drive into the abandoned orphanage while Damian’s team surrounded the building.
Damian insisted on joining them.
At 5:36 a.m., they arrived.
The orphanage stood on a hill beyond the city, its stone windows broken and its chapel roof partially collapsed.
Marcus entered alone.
The drive’s tracker moved through the building.
Then stopped.
Robert studied the signal.
“It’s underground.”
Police entered through three access points.
They found a tunnel beneath the chapel.
At the end was a locked room containing medical equipment, restraints, and boxes of documents.
But Eleanor was not there.
Neither were Elara and Adrian.
On the wall hung a large mirror.
Damian approached it.
His reflection stared back at him.
Then Elara’s voice came through a hidden speaker.
“Damian?”
He struck the glass.
“Elara!”
A monitor behind the mirror turned on.
Elara appeared on-screen, tied to a chair.
Adrian sat beside her.
Eleanor stood between them.
“This is your final opportunity,” Eleanor said. “At noon, you will appear before the board and surrender control of the company.”
Damian stared at the screen.
“If I refuse?”
Eleanor rested one hand on Elara’s shoulder.
“Your wife disappears again.”
Elara lifted her head.
There was blood on her lip, but her eyes were clear.
“Don’t give her anything,” she said.
Eleanor slapped her.
Damian lunged toward the screen.
Elara looked directly into the camera.
“The birds are louder near the water.”
The monitor went black.
Robert looked at Damian.
“What did she mean?”
Damian closed his eyes.
Elara had once spent summers painting on the northern coast.
There was only one Hawthorne property where rare seabirds nested beside the water.
The abandoned Hawthorne glassworks.
A factory owned by a company that officially no longer existed.
Damian looked at the clock.
May you like
They had six hours before noon.
And this time, Eleanor had no idea Elara had just revealed the location.
