Chapter 2 - The Raffle That Never HappenedSomeone Wanted Her Found
By midnight, the entire eastern wing of Hollow Pine was under lockdown.
Every entrance was sealed.
Every employee was questioned.
Every vehicle was searched.
The attacker had disappeared without leaving a footprint.
That fact disturbed me more than the gunshot.
People didn't vanish from Hollow Pine.
Not without help.
Mara sat in my study wrapped in a blanket while Ruth brought her tea.
She hadn't touched it.
Her eyes kept moving.
Window.
Door.
Hallway.
Camera.
Door.
She was mapping escape routes.
People only did that when they expected to need one.
“You're a nursing student,” I said.
“Former student.”
“Why did you leave?”
“My mother got sick.”
“What happened to her?”
“She died.”
There was no self-pity in the answer.
Just exhaustion.
“How long ago?”
“Eight months.”
“And then?”
“I worked two jobs.”
“For whom?”
She looked up.
“That's the wrong question.”
I leaned forward.
“Then give me the right one.”
She stared at me for several seconds.
“Ask who I was helping.”
I waited.
She finally said, “A man named Daniel Cross.”
I knew the name.
Not personally.
But Thomas had mentioned it once.
A security contractor.
Former military.
Specialized in corporate risk management.
“Daniel Cross is dead.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Six months ago.”
“How?”
“Officially? Heart attack.”
“And unofficially?”
Mara's fingers tightened around the cup.
“Poison.”
Vince entered the room.
“We've got something.”
He placed a tablet on my desk.
The resort security system showed twelve minutes of missing footage.
Not twenty-seven.
Twelve.
Someone had deleted the exact moment Mara entered the private grounds.
Vince pointed to a log.
“The override came from inside.”
“Whose credentials?”
He didn't answer immediately.
“Yours.”
My eyes hardened.
“That's impossible.”
“Your administrator code was used at 3:48 p.m.”
I looked at Mara.
She looked horrified.
“I told you,” she whispered. “Someone wanted me here.”
Vince pulled out another file.
“There's more.”
He showed me the resort booking system.
The union raffle reservation existed.
The guest name existed.
The confirmation existed.
But the transaction didn't.
“It was manufactured,” he said.
“By whom?”
“Not sure.”
I stood.
“Find out.”
Vince hesitated.
“Sir, there's another problem.”
“What?”
He turned the tablet around.
“Someone used an access card from the old east service corridor at 3:31.”
That corridor had been sealed after the accident.
The same accident that killed Thomas.
My heart started beating faster.
I walked out of the study.
Mara followed.
“Mara.”
She stopped.
“Where are you going?”
“To the corridor.”
“Why?”
She looked directly at me.
“Because Daniel told me never to enter it alone.”
I stared at her.
“Why?”
“He said the walls had microphones.”
Vince gave a humorless laugh.
“That sounds paranoid.”
Mara looked at him.
“Then why were you standing outside my room before you met me?”
Vince went still.
I looked between them.
“Vince?”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“I wasn't.”
Mara's face tightened.
“Yes, you were.”
I walked toward him.
“Explain.”
“I was checking perimeter security.”
“Forty feet from the pavilion?”
“Yes.”
“Before we knew she was there?”
Silence.
That was when I realized something.
Vince wasn't lying.
He was hiding something.
Those were different things.
He looked at me.
“Sir, Thomas told me something the week before he died.”
My pulse jumped.
“What?”
“He said that if anything happened to him, I was supposed to keep you away from the old east corridor.”
Mara stepped forward.
“Then he lied to both of us.”
Vince stared at her.
She pulled a second object from beneath her sleeve.
A tiny silver recording device.
She placed it on my desk.
“Daniel left this for me.”
I pressed play.
Static.
Then Thomas's voice.
My brother's voice.
Fourteen months dead.
My knees almost gave out.
“Don't trust the man who tells you I died alone.”
I stopped breathing.
The recording continued.
“If Huy ever finds this, tell him one thing.”
Mara's eyes filled with tears.
Thomas whispered:
“The accident wasn't the betrayal.”
Static.
Then nothing.
I stared at the device.
“There's more,” Mara said.
“Where?”
May you like
She looked toward the old east corridor.
“In the walls.”
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