CHAPTER 19: THE FORTY-NINTH FLOOR
Harrison remembered the rain.
He remembered driving Daniel’s car.
He remembered blood on his shirt.
But everything after that existed only in fragments.
“I woke up in a private hospital the next morning,” he said. “Dad told me I had crashed the car.”
“You did crash,” Eleanor replied. “But not before you came here.”
“Whose blood was on me?”
“I don’t know. You kept repeating one name.”
“What name?”
“Samuel Ruiz.”
Emma searched the Northbridge employment records.
There was no Samuel Ruiz among the fourteen victims.
He did not appear in immigration records, payroll files or death certificates.
It was as if he had never existed.
Before they could investigate further, Harrison received an emergency message from Cole Urban Development.
A special board meeting had been called for nine o’clock.
The meeting took place on the forty-ninth floor of Cole Tower.
Employees crowded the hallways.
Reporters had already learned about Eleanor’s lawsuit.
Someone had leaked Sloan’s ledger and the Northbridge audio recording.
Inside the boardroom, Khloe faced twenty-three directors and employee trustees.
An older man sat at the far end of the table.
His silver hair was perfectly combed.
His dark suit showed no trace of age or weakness.
Charles Rourke rose when Khloe entered.
“My condolences regarding your father,” he said.
Khloe stopped several feet from him.
“You attended his funeral.”
“I preferred to mourn privately.”
“You also preferred to disappear during Thomas Crane’s trial.”
“I was never charged.”
“That does not make you innocent.”
Rourke smiled.
“You sound like Elizabeth.”
Harrison stepped between them.
“Where is Rebecca?”
“I have no idea.”
“You knew about Sloan’s ledger.”
“I knew Sloan was a corrupt man who documented his crimes. That is hardly my responsibility.”
Rourke placed a folder before the board.
Eleanor’s lawsuit demanded six hundred million dollars in damages.
Banks had temporarily suspended several lines of credit.
Government partners were reviewing every Cole project connected to Daniel.
Rourke presented himself as the only person capable of negotiating with the insurers.
His condition was simple.
Khloe had to resign as chairwoman.
The employee ownership trust would be suspended until the crisis ended.
Rourke would assume emergency control.
“You created this crisis,” Khloe said.
“I did not force your father to remain silent.”
“You advised him.”
“I advised him to protect thirty thousand jobs.”
“Fourteen people died.”
“And how many families depended on this company?”
Rourke turned toward the board.
“Leadership requires choosing which losses can be survived.”
Khloe recognized the sentence.
It was almost identical to what he had told Daniel in the recording.
Before the board could vote, fire alarms activated throughout the tower.
Khloe’s phone rang.
The call came from the children’s center.
“Ms. Cole,” the security director said, “we have initiated a full evacuation.”
“What happened?”
“Several children became sick during the afternoon program.”
Khloe’s hand tightened around the phone.
“Is Hope there?”
“Yes. She’s safe.”
“What caused it?”
“We don’t know. The fire department detected a chemical odor near the garden ventilation system.”
Rourke quietly closed his folder.
Khloe looked at him.
He showed no surprise.
She ran from the boardroom.
By the time she reached the center, emergency crews had sealed the building.
Hope sat inside an ambulance with an oxygen mask over her face.
Khloe climbed in beside her.
“I’m okay,” Hope whispered.
Khloe held her hand.
Outside, investigators removed soil samples from the children’s garden.
A hazardous-materials officer approached.
“We found industrial solvent beneath the playground.”
“How long has it been there?”
“We’ll need laboratory testing.”
“Could it have come from the old hospital?”
“Possibly.”
He handed her a preliminary identification sheet.
The chemical had been manufactured by one company.
Rourke Industrial Materials.
The officer turned the page.
“The barrels were registered as part of a disposal order issued twenty-six years ago.”
Khloe read the destination.
Northbridge Tower.
May you like
The poison buried beneath the children’s center had come from the same construction site where fourteen men had died.
And someone had recently disturbed it.
