Chapter 2 - THE SECOND KEYIsabella refused to sleep.
The doctors had treated the cuts on her wrists and the bruising around her ribs. They wanted to keep her overnight for observation, but by midnight she was sitting upright in the private hospital room, staring at the door.
"He's coming," she said.
"Jasper?"
She nodded.
I pulled a chair beside her bed.
"He can't get through hospital security."
She gave me a tired smile.
"You still don't understand."
"What?"
"Jasper wasn't afraid of the police."
She looked toward the dark window.
"He was afraid of something else."
I waited.
She reached beneath the pillow.
Her fingers trembled as she pulled out a tiny brass key.
I stared at it.
"Where did you get that?"
"Jasper gave it to me."
"Why?"
"He didn't."
She closed her hand around it.
"I stole it."
That got my attention.
She explained that three days before the warehouse, Jasper had received a visitor at their estate.
A man Isabella had never seen before.
No driver.
No assistant.
No security detail.
Just one man in a black coat carrying an old leather case.
They met in Jasper's study.
Isabella had heard them arguing.
Then the stranger said something that made Jasper furious.
"You promised the money would disappear."
"I made it disappear."
"You moved the money."
"That's the same thing."
"No."
The stranger's voice had become colder.
"The money moved because someone discovered the second account."
Isabella had pressed herself against the hallway wall.
Then Jasper asked the question that changed everything.
"Does Caleb know?"
The stranger answered.
"Caleb knows more than you think."
I stared at Isabella.
"Did you hear his name clearly?"
"Yes."
She slid the key across the table.
"The next morning I found this in Jasper's study."
It was old.
Not expensive.
Not decorative.
The metal had tiny scratches around the teeth.
"What does it open?"
"I don't know."
She hesitated.
"That's why Jasper wanted the drive."
I frowned.
"What was on the drive?"
"Evidence."
"I know."
"No."
She leaned closer.
"Not just evidence against Jasper."
Her voice dropped.
"It contained records about our father."
I felt the room change.
Our father's name had become something our family barely spoke aloud.
He had died five years earlier.
Officially, heart failure.
Officially, a peaceful death.
Officially, nothing unusual.
But Isabella stared at me.
"Jasper found out Dad was moving money before he died."
"How?"
"He was involved with several investment companies."
"He was."
"He didn't own them."
I said nothing.
She looked toward the door.
"He controlled them."
A cold line formed between my shoulders.
"Isabella, what are you saying?"
"That our father had another life."
The same words Jasper had thrown at me in the warehouse.
Your father wasn't the man you believed him to be.
I took the key.
There was a symbol etched into the metal.
Three interlocking circles.
I recognized it.
Not from business.
From one of the files I had secretly collected overseas.
A private security consortium.
A network of corporations that specialized in protecting money no government could trace.
I had seen the symbol only twice.
Both times, people disappeared afterward.
I slipped the key into my pocket.
"Where's the drive?"
Isabella went still.
"What?"
"The encrypted drive."
"You have it."
"No."
Her eyes widened.
"What do you mean?"
I reached into my coat.
The drive Jasper thought he had been fighting for was still there.
I placed it on the table.
She stared at it.
"Then what's the password?"
"I don't know."
"Neither do I."
Silence.
Then Isabella whispered:
"Maybe Jasper wasn't trying to get the password."
I looked up.
"What?"
"He already had it."
The monitor beside the bed suddenly beeped.
Once.
Twice.
Then every light in the room went dark.
I stood immediately.
Isabella grabbed my wrist.
"Caleb."
A shadow moved beneath the door.
Someone was standing outside.
No footsteps.
No breathing.
Nothing.
Then the door handle turned.
I pushed Isabella behind me.
The door opened.
A nurse stepped inside.
She froze.
I froze too.
Something was wrong.
She wasn't carrying medical equipment.
Her badge was upside down.
And there was blood on her sleeve.
She looked directly at me.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
Then she lifted a syringe.
I struck her wrist before she could move.
The syringe flew across the room.
She screamed.
Two security officers rushed toward the door.
But before they reached us, the hospital alarm began blaring.
The woman laughed.
"Too late."
"What did you do?"
She looked at Isabella.
"I only needed to confirm one thing."
"What?"
"That she was alive."
Her face suddenly changed.
Fear replaced the smile.
She looked past me.
Toward the hallway.
"Oh God."
A muffled explosion shook the floor.
The hospital windows rattled.
The woman's face turned white.
"They found you."
I stared at her.
"Who?"
She whispered four words.
May you like
"The Blackwood family."
Then someone began firing in the hallway.
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