Chapter 5 - The Accident on Route 9The silence in the room was absolute. Even the heart monitor seemed to slow its pace, keeping time with the heavy, frantic thumping of my own chest.
“Who?” I asked, my voice barely a rasp. “Who drove me off the road?”
“We don’t know yet,” Thorne said, standing up and buttoning his lab coat. “Security footage from the highway cameras shows a black SUV without plates tailgating you for three miles before the drop-off. It wasn't an erratic driver, Grant. It was an assassination attempt.”
I looked down at my fractured wrist, encased in its rigid brace. My body was broken, but my mind was hyper-fixated on a single, terrifying objective.
“Mara knows,” I said.
“Mara has been protecting you from the shadows for nine years,” Thorne corrected. “She never stopped investigating Owen’s murder. She found out two weeks ago that your mother was liquidating the remaining Holloway assets to pay off someone—someone who helped cover up the crime scene the night Owen died.”
“Who?”
“That’s what Mara went to find out at Memorial General tonight,” Thorne said, walking toward the door. “She received a tip from an anonymous source inside your mother’s inner circle. But walking into that hospital alone was a suicide mission.”
“Help me up,” I demanded, throwing the blanket off my legs.
“Grant, you have three fractured ribs—”
“Help me up, Thorne!” I shouted, wincing as a sharp pain lanced through my side. “My wife is walking into a trap set by the same person who tried to kill me yesterday! Get this IV out of my arm right now, or I swear to God I’ll rip it out myself.”
Thorne stared at me for a long, calculating moment. He saw the fire in my eyes—the same fire that had driven me to marry Mara in defiance of my entire family nine years ago.
Slowly, the doctor walked back to the bed. With practiced efficiency, he unclipped the IV line and pulled the tape from the back of my hand.
“There’s a spare pair of scrubs in the visitor’s locker,” Thorne muttered, unlocking a cabinet against the wall. “And if security asks, you escaped, and I was too incompetent to stop you.”
May you like
I grabbed the clothes, my teeth gritted against the agony in my ribs. “Thanks, Doc.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Thorne said grimly at the door. “Memorial General is on lockdown. Getting in will be easy compared to what you’re going to find when you get inside.”
