Chapter 4 - THE FERRY TICKET
Darkness lasted less than three seconds.
Emergency lights came on near the floor.
Soft red strips turned the hallway into something that looked more like a submarine than a mansion.
Tessa’s breathing quickened.
Declan touched her shoulder.
“Look at me.”
She did.
“You know the service passages better than I do.”
Her fear steadied beneath the responsibility.
“The linen access.”
“Where?”
She pointed toward a paneled wall.
“There’s a maintenance release behind the cabinet.”
Camille stared at her.
“How do you know that?”
“I clean it.”
For the first time that afternoon, Declan almost smiled.
He had paid architects millions to design a fortress.
The woman who scrubbed its baseboards knew how to escape it.
Tessa dragged a narrow storage cabinet aside.
Behind it sat a plain steel maintenance panel.
“No electronic lock,” she said.
Declan found the mechanical latch.
Thirty seconds later, the panel opened into a cramped utility corridor.
Camille looked at the dark space.
Declan looked at her legs.
“Can you manage that?”
She immediately understood what he meant.
“I can manage more than you think.”
He nodded once.
“No argument.”
“I wasn’t asking permission.”
There she was.
The woman he remembered.
They moved through the corridor.
Tessa led.
Camille followed.
Declan came last, gun drawn.
The passage emerged beside the lower security office.
Its door stood open.
That was wrong.
Gavin never left it open.
Declan motioned for the women to remain behind him.
Then he entered.
A chair had been knocked over.
One monitor was cracked.
A mug lay shattered across the floor.
And Gavin Shaw was facedown beside the desk.
Blood ran from his temple.
Camille stopped behind Declan.
“Oh my God.”
Declan crouched.
Gavin had a pulse.
Strong.
His gun remained holstered.
That mattered.
If he had staged the scene, leaving the weapon untouched was a detail Declan would expect him to consider.
If someone had attacked him, the attacker had either not wanted him dead or had been interrupted.
Gavin groaned.
Declan rolled him onto his back.
His eyes opened.
Confusion came first.
Then recognition.
Then something like alarm.
“Camille.”
Her face changed.
Not surprise that he could see her standing.
Something closer to confirmation.
Declan noticed.
“You knew.”
Gavin pushed himself onto one elbow.
“I suspected.”
“When?”
“Three weeks.”
Tessa stiffened.
That was when she had discovered Camille too.
Declan grabbed Gavin’s shirt.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because somebody has been altering your internal security feeds.”
“You run internal security.”
“I know.”
“Convenient.”
Gavin looked past him at Camille.
“Did Aris tell him?”
Declan tightened his grip.
“Tell me what?”
Gavin closed his eyes briefly.
“That doctor has been lying to everybody.”
Camille stepped forward.
“He kept me alive.”
Gavin reached into his jacket slowly.
Declan drew the gun.
“Two fingers.”
Gavin stopped.
“Inside pocket.”
Declan removed the item himself.
It was a ferry ticket.
Old.
Folded twice.
Printed date: March 4.
Six months earlier.
Bainbridge Island to Seattle.
On the back, someone had written a time and location.
7:30.
Morrow Inn.
Declan recognized the handwriting.
Gavin’s.
“What is this?”
“I followed Aris.”
Camille stared at him.
“You followed my doctor?”
“I follow anyone who starts lying to my boss.”
Declan unfolded the ticket completely.
A small receipt had been tucked inside.
Coffee.
Two guests.
The Morrow Inn lounge.
“What happened there?”
Gavin wiped blood from his brow.
“Aris met with Dominic Moretti’s cousin.”
The room went silent.
Declan looked at Camille.
Her face had lost color.
Gavin continued.
“I watched them for thirty-eight minutes.”
“What did they exchange?”
“An envelope.”
Declan looked at Camille.
“Did you know about this?”
She said nothing.
That silence had become something he hated.
“Camille.”
“Yes.”
Gavin turned sharply toward her.
“You knew?”
Camille’s mouth tightened.
“I knew Dr. Aris went.”
Declan’s voice dropped.
“You sent him.”
She did not answer immediately.
He stepped closer.
“Did you send your doctor to meet a Moretti?”
“Yes.”
The word landed harder than expected.
Declan remembered the warehouse earlier that afternoon.
Two bodies.
A ruined negotiation.
Men who had spent years trying to weaken him.
“You had contact with them while pretending to be unconscious?”
Camille’s eyes flashed.
“I was trying to find out who bombed me.”
“By going behind my back?”
“You had already buried everyone you blamed.”
Before Declan could answer, a voice came from the hallway.
Calm.
Older.
Exhausted.
“I told her not to involve you until we knew the truth.”
They all turned.
Dr. Elias Aris stood in the doorway with both hands raised where Declan could see them.
His gaze settled on the gun.
Then on Gavin.
Then on Camille.
“I wasn’t meeting Moretti for myself,” he said.
May you like
He looked directly at Declan.
“Your wife sent me.”
