The stranger’s hand trembled so violently that his phone almost slipped from his grip. He wore a dark green Bradley University hoodie pulled low over his forehead, his eyes darting back toward the empty hallway like a hunted animal.

Mac was a former Army Ranger who ran a private security and data-forensics firm out of Chicago. We had bled together in Fallujah, and when I told him what happened to Lily, his answer was four words: I’m on my way.

By 3:00 a.m., Mac arrived at Mercy General in an unmarked black SUV. He managed to bribe a midnight order-taker to get us access to a secure private room on the 4th floor, moving Lily out of Room 214 before Miller’s security goons realized she was gone.

"I hired a private 24/7 security team," Mac said, pulling up a chair inside the new room. He handed me a steaming cup of dark coffee. "Two combat vets at the door. Nobody gets in without your say-so, Dan. Not doctors, not cops, not the damn Governor."

"Thanks, Mac," I said, taking a sip. "What about the kid?"

Julian was sitting in the corner, eating a cold sandwich Mac had brought him.

"Julian’s staying at my safe house in Naperville until this blows over," Mac said. "Now, tell me about this embezzlement scheme."

Julian wiped his mouth and pulled a small USB thumb drive from his pocket. "Lily didn't just find ledgers. She backed them up. She gave me this drive two days ago. She said, 'If anything happens to me, give this to the state auditor.'"

Mac took the drive and plugged it into a ruggedized military laptop. The screen glowed bright blue in the darkened room. Lines of encrypted code flickered before resolving into complex spreadsheets.

"Holy hell," Mac breathed, leaning closer to the screen. "Look at these routing numbers."

"What is it?" I asked.

"This isn't just tuition money being skimmed," Mac said, tapping the keys aggressively. "This is an off-shore laundering funnel. Hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing from the Bradley University Endowment Fund into a shell company called 'Apex Horizon Corp' registered in the Cayman Islands. And guess who the primary shareholder of Apex Horizon is?"

"Arthur Vance," I said.

"Bingo. But it gets worse," Mac pointed at a secondary set of transactions. "Dean Albright of Bradley University was taking kickbacks to approve real estate developments on campus land. Vance’s construction firm was getting non-bid contracts at three times the market rate. Lily uncovered a paper trail totaling over fourteen million dollars."

"That’s why they tried to kill her," I growled, looking over at Lily. Her swelling had peaked; her pale skin was bruised purple and blue, her chest rising and falling to the rhythm of the heart monitor.

"They didn't just try to kill her to hide the money," Mac said grimly. "Look at the timestamp on the last file created on this drive. 9:15 p.m. last night. Just two hours before she was attacked."

"What was that file?"

"A police report draft," Mac read from the screen. "Lily was planning to go to the Peoria Police Department this morning. But she made one fatal mistake: she tried to give Marcus Vance a chance to explain himself. She thought Marcus was innocent. She thought his dad was doing it behind his back."

"She was trying to protect him," I whispered, grief choking my throat. "And he used that to set her up."

Suddenly, the monitor connected to Lily’s heart began to beep faster.

I rushed to her bedside. Her one open eye was fluttering. Her fingers scratched wildly at the bedsheets.

"Lily? Lily, I’m here!" I grabbed her hand gently.

Her throat made a harsh, clicking sound. Because her jaw was wired shut, she couldn't speak. Her eye rolled in panic as she pointed desperately toward her hoodie hanging on the back of the chair.

"The hoodie?" I asked.

She nodded frantically, tears streaming down her bruised temples.

I stepped over, picked up the blue hoodie, and searched through the pockets. Empty. I ran my fingers along the hem, feeling for anything unusual.

Near the bottom inner lining of the right pocket, my thumb caught on a small, sharp object tucked inside a hidden slit in the fabric.