Chapter 8 - Eighteen Minutes
Gunfire cracked through the darkness.
Nathan dropped behind a concrete desk.
Samuel hit the floor beside him.
Agents shouted commands.
Emergency lights flashed red.
Charles Harrington was gone.
One federal agent had been hit in the vest.
The safe remained open.
Nathan grabbed the drives.
Samuel grabbed the ledgers.
They ran upstairs.
The timer on the monitor had shown less than eighteen minutes.
Nathan called his mother.
No answer.
He called the estate security line.
Disconnected.
Samuel contacted federal teams.
The location in the video had to be identified.
Nathan replayed the brief image in his mind.
Stone walls.
Wine racks.
Brass light fixtures.
Then he remembered.
“Harrington estate.”
Samuel looked at him.
“Are you sure?”
“I drank in that cellar during my engagement dinner.”
Teams moved immediately.
Nathan drove.
Samuel swore at him from the passenger seat.
“You’re doing eighty.”
“My mother has thirteen minutes.”
“She betrayed Grace.”
Nathan tightened his grip on the wheel.
“She did.”
Samuel looked at him.
“And you’re still going.”
Nathan stared at the road.
“I’m done letting people decide who deserves to be saved.”
They reached the Harrington estate with six minutes remaining.
Agents breached the cellar.
Margaret sat tied beneath the countdown device.
It was not a bomb.
It controlled an automated gas release.
A clear chemical line ran into the room.
Agents shut it down with ninety-three seconds left.
Nathan cut the ropes around his mother’s wrists.
Margaret looked at him.
“I’m sorry.”
Nathan did not answer.
He helped her stand.
Outside, Samuel opened one of the ledgers.
His expression changed.
“Nathan.”
“What?”
“You need to see this.”
Each page listed payments.
Judges.
Police officers.
City officials.
Consultants.
Nathan recognized dozens of names.
Then Samuel reached a section labeled MILLER.
Grace’s family.
Nathan took the ledger.
Payments had been made to a private investigator.
A landlord.
A hospital administrator.
And someone named E.M.
The payments continued for four years.
Nathan photographed the pages.
“Who is E.M.?”
Margaret whispered.
“I know.”
Nathan looked at her.
She sat on the ambulance bumper.
“Eleanor Miller.”
Grace’s mother.
Nathan stared.
“Grace told me her mother died.”
Margaret shook her head.
“No.”
Nathan’s entire body went cold.
“She isn’t dead?”
“No.”
“Then where is she?”
Margaret looked terrified.
“Richard paid her to disappear.”
Nathan struggled to understand.
“Why?”
“Because Eleanor knew something about Charles.”
“What?”
Margaret hesitated.
Nathan crouched in front of her.
“Mom.”
“No more half-truths.”
Margaret looked at him.
“Eleanor worked for Harrington Global.”
“She discovered the shell companies before anyone else.”
“She tried to warn Richard.”
Nathan frowned.
“And?”
“Three days later, her car went off a bridge.”
Nathan remembered Grace telling him her mother had died in an accident when Grace was nineteen.
Margaret continued.
“But Eleanor survived.”
“Richard hid her.”
Nathan stood.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Samuel turned another page.
A monthly payment had been made two weeks earlier.
To a private medical facility in Vermont.
Nathan looked at the address.
Eleanor Miller was alive.
And if Grace’s mother could prove Charles Harrington had been stealing from Cole Holdings for more than a decade, she might be the witness who could collapse the entire conspiracy.
Nathan immediately called Grace.
She answered after one ring.
“Nathan?”
He looked at the ledger.
“Grace.”
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
“What?”
May you like
Nathan swallowed.
“Your mother may still be alive.”
