Chapter 6 - THE GARAGE CAMERA
Dr. Hall disappeared before we could reach him.
His office was empty.
His phone was off.
And at 4:20 P.M., somebody tried to kill me.
I was walking toward my van when Dominic shouted my name.
I turned.
My van rolled backward.
By itself.
It had been parked on a level driveway.
The driver's door was closed.
The engine wasn't running.
But the vehicle suddenly accelerated downhill toward me.
Dominic hit me hard enough to knock both of us behind a stone planter.
My van smashed into the courtyard wall.
Glass exploded.
For several seconds, all I heard was my own breathing.
Dominic was half on top of me.
“You hurt?”
“Ask me after I decide whether I still have ribs.”
He got up and helped me stand.
The brake line had been cut.
Cleanly.
Recently.
Dominic looked murderous.
I looked at the wrecked van.
Then at him.
“Don't.”
“Don't what?”
“Become exactly what whoever did this expects you to become.”
His eyes sharpened.
“You almost died.”
“So did you last night.”
That stopped him.
Security footage showed a hooded figure near my van forty minutes earlier.
Face hidden.
Gloves.
No useful identification.
Then I noticed the timestamp.
“Go back.”
The technician rewound.
“Again.”
The figure appeared.
I pointed toward the bottom of the frame.
“What is that?”
A reflection.
Small.
Silver.
A distinctive badge clipped to the intruder's belt.
Dominic recognized it.
“Executive security clearance.”
Only seven people carried one.
Mercer.
Three senior guards.
Dominic.
His cousin Vincent Moretti.
And the family's longtime attorney.
Dominic went quiet.
“Vincent was here?”
The technician checked entry records.
“Yes.”
His cousin had entered the property at 2:47.
He claimed he came after hearing about Dominic's seizure.
He left at 4:31.
Eleven minutes after my van's brake line was cut.
Dominic sat down slowly.
“Vincent has been my financial director for twelve years.”
I looked at him.
“Does he know you're trying to change how your organization operates?”
Dominic's expression gave me the answer.
For the past two years, he'd been selling off illegal interests, moving employees into legitimate companies, and quietly dismantling the most violent pieces of the Moretti organization.
“Mercer opposed it,” Dominic said.
“And Vincent?”
“He said he supported me.”
I looked at my destroyed van.
“Maybe he lied.”
The technician enlarged another camera angle.
Vincent wasn't alone when he left.
A man entered the passenger side of his car.
Dr. Samuel Hall.
Dominic stared at the image.
May you like
And we finally understood that Mercer wasn't acting alone.
The doctor, the security chief, and Dominic's own cousin had all been working together.
