CHAPTER 5 — THE SECOND ATTEMPT
Nurses ran toward the incubator.
A figure in hospital scrubs fled through the rear exit.
By the time security reached the stairwell, the intruder was gone.
Khloe’s daughter was still alive.
Her oxygen tube had been disconnecte
d, but a nurse had noticed the sudden change within seconds.
Marcus reached the NICU at the same time as Adrian.
“What happened?”
“Someone tried to interfere with her breathing support.”
Marcus looked through the glass at his daughter’s tiny body.
Then he turned to security.
“Lock down the building.”
Richard’s attorney objected immediately.
“You cannot trap hundreds of guests and patients inside a hospital.”
Marcus grabbed him by the collar.
“Someone just tried to kill my daughter.”
Adrian pulled him away.
“Do not give them another reason to blame you.”
Security reviewed the access log.
The badge used to enter the NICU belonged to Elaine Parker.
Marcus stared at the name.
“She was with us when we found Khloe.”
“She also had access to the gala floors,” the security director said.
“Where is she?”
No one knew.
Elaine had disappeared shortly after giving her first statement.
Her phone had been turned off.
Her car remained in the hospital garage.
Richard used the discovery to reshape the entire story.
By evening, several media outlets reported that a disgruntled event coordinator had staged the attack to blackmail the Thorne family.
Isabella’s lawyers claimed she had been manipulated.
Richard publicly expressed concern for “all victims involved.”
Khloe watched the interview from her hospital bed.
“He is burying her,” she said.
“Elaine?” Adrian asked.
“She saw something. That’s why she disappeared.”
Marcus entered carrying a laptop.
“I found a backup copy of the suite footage.”
“Where?”
“Elaine uploaded it to a private server before she vanished.”
There was another file attached.
A scheduled email addressed to Khloe.
It contained only three sentences.
Mrs. Thorne, your father-in-law gave Isabella the keycard.
He paid her eight million dollars through Rossi International.
If anything happens to me, search the service level beneath the ballroom.
Adrian contacted security.
The service level had already been searched.
But beneath the ballroom was an older maintenance corridor that did not appear on the modern floor plans.
Marcus and Adrian entered it with two police officers.
They found Elaine’s broken phone near an abandoned elevator.
A trail of blood led toward a locked storage room.
Marcus forced the door open.
The room was empty.
But on the floor lay Elaine’s gala folder.
Inside was a photograph of Richard handing Isabella the keycard.
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Written across the back were six words:
MARCUS KNEW MORE THAN HE ADMITTED.
