Chapter 16 - The Caldwell Matriarch
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Nora looked down at her lap, staring at the four names she had painstakingly written on the bloody cardstock the night before. She picked up her marker, her hand shaking with a new kind of terror, and added a fifth name to the bottom of the whiteboard.
Eleanor Caldwell.
For the first time since I arrived at the hospital, I understood that the mystery surrounding my daughter's shattered jaw had not begun in that cold parking structure. It hadn't been a spontaneous act of violence by panicked college boys.
It had been calculated. It had been ordered.
It had begun years earlier, inside velvet-lined boardrooms where massive donations were celebrated, elite reputations were fiercely protected, and powerful families convinced themselves that preserving a billion-dollar institution was the exact same thing as protecting the people inside it.
“Eleanor Caldwell ordered a hit on a college student,” I stated flatly, the reality of the situation hanging heavy in the sterile hospital air.
“We can't prove she ordered the assault,” Bell cautioned quickly, holding up a hand. “All we can prove right now is that her executive login credentials were used to blind the security cameras seventy seconds before the attack occurred.”
“She sent Martin Vale to intercept the documents Preston stole,” I reasoned aloud, my tactical brain moving ten steps ahead. “Vale cut the lights. Vale beat my daughter to near-death to retrieve the folder, and when Preston tried to intervene, Vale beat him too.”
“And Chad and Brantley?” Maya asked nervously.
“They were likely there to stop Preston from leaking the intel, but they probably didn't expect Vale to show up and turn it into a bloodbath,” Bell guessed.
“Where is Vale now?” I asked Bell.
“Unreachable. His phone is dark, and his university office was cleared out before sunrise.”
Of course it was. A professional cleaner knows when the perimeter is compromised.
I looked down at Nora. She was staring at me, her eyes pleading. She was trapped in a hospital bed, her jaw wired shut, her incredible journalistic work stolen and covered up by the most powerful woman in the city.
The justice system, even with a good cop like Bell, would take months to subpoena Eleanor Caldwell. She would hide behind an army of lawyers.
I had promised Nora I wouldn't become the Phantom. I promised I would do this legally.
May you like
But legal didn't mean polite.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my encrypted phone.
