Chapter 4 - THE MAN WHO DID
Sarah Lin agreed to speak only after police placed her under protection.
She had worked nights at St. Catherine for three years.
Amelia trusted her because Sarah refused to increase the sedative doses.
“She remembers more than Victor believes,” Sarah said.
“She remembers the hospital fire.”
“Who started it?” Ethan asked.
“She never saw the person’s face.”
“She heard two men arguing outside her room.”
“One was Victor.”
“The other called him a coward.”
Sarah had secretly recorded Amelia describing the night.
The recording was weak because Amelia’s voice had been damaged by smoke.
Ethan listened through headphones.
“The older man said the baby had to disappear.”
“Victor said Ethan was not supposed to lose his wife.”
“The older man answered that grief would make Ethan obedient.”
Ethan replayed the final line.
He recognized the voice in the background.
Not the words.
The rhythm.
The controlled pauses.
A voice from his childhood.
His grandfather, Conrad Blackwood.
Conrad had supposedly died eight years earlier.
One year before the hospital fire.
Ethan looked at Marcus.
“Find the death certificate.”
Marcus searched from his tablet.
Conrad Blackwood’s body had been identified after a boating accident.
The identification came from dental records.
The dentist was Dr. Malcolm Voss’s father.
The same medical family connected to Ethan’s false heart condition.
Conrad may never have died.
Victor had not created the conspiracy.
He had inherited it.
Sarah explained that Victor moved Amelia whenever she remembered Conrad’s name.
The latest transfer likely led to an older facility not listed in company records.
Ethan remembered a Blackwood property abandoned after his grandfather’s death.
Ravenscroft Sanatorium.
The building stood beyond the old freight district.
It contained underground treatment rooms constructed during the 1940s.
Marcus sent teams immediately.
Before Ethan could leave St. Catherine, his attorney called.
The Blackwood Industries board had moved the emergency vote forward.
Victor’s allies planned to declare Ethan medically unfit at noon.
They would appoint Victor permanent chairman.
If Ethan failed to appear, the motion would pass.
Ethan looked toward the road where Amelia had disappeared.
He had to choose between the board and his wife.
Lily took his hand.
“Mommy said Victor wants you angry.”
“She said angry people look where he points.”
Ethan knelt.
“What do you think I should look at?”
“The people he thinks don’t matter.”
Ethan looked toward Sarah.
The nurses.
The drivers.
The clerks.
The people who had carried orders, cleaned rooms, and watched doors.
Victor controlled executives.
He did not control every witness.
Ethan called his attorney.
“Prepare the boardroom.”
“I will attend.”
“Are you abandoning the search?” Marcus asked.
“No.”
May you like
“I am making Victor believe the vote still matters more to me than Amelia.”
“Then we follow him when he thinks he has won.”
