Chapter 12 - Thomas’s Building
Thomas had designed the research center.
I remembered visiting during construction.
He showed me emergency ventilation controls hidden behind the main electrical panel.
The system could isolate every room during a chemical spill.
Victor did not know that Thomas had installed a manual override.
I gave the location to the tactical commander.
Agents reached the exterior panel.
It required a physical key.
Thomas’s brass office key fit the lock.
I had carried it inside my purse since the day of the driveway rescue.
The ventilation reversed.
Fresh air entered Lily’s laboratory.
The shutters opened.
Rachel ran downstairs.
Victor fired toward the agents and fled through a service tunnel.
Martin remained alive.
The bullet struck his shoulder.
He told Rachel which room held Lily.
Rachel found her daughter beneath the monitor.
Lily was crying but breathing normally.
Rachel lifted her.
The live camera showed her pressing her face against the baby’s blanket.
Federal agents searched the tunnels.
Victor escaped through an underground garage.
His vehicle had been prepared.
Martin was arrested at the hospital.
He agreed to cooperate after learning Judith had blamed him for Thomas’s death.
He admitted administering the fatal drug.
Judith designed the plan.
Victor paid them.
Tyler knew Thomas had been threatened but did not know the exact murder date.
Vanessa knew nothing about Thomas.
Each conspirator possessed a different section of the truth.
Together, they had built a system no one person could expose.
Thomas understood that.
That was why his cameras recorded automatically.
Why his files copied off-site.
Why his trust required multiple confirmations.
He had built protection after realizing he could not trust secrecy.
Martin provided Victor’s private account locations.
The money connected him to every fraudulent custody case.
Victor’s international travel documents were frozen.
He still had one path out.
A private aircraft waited at a rural airfield.
Police reached it before he did.
The aircraft was empty.
Inside the cabin was a laptop streaming live footage from my house.
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Victor had not gone to the airfield.
He had gone to Thomas’s office.
