Chapter 4 - The Missing Assistant.
Elena spent the night under observation in a private hospital room.
The baby's heartbeat remained strong.
The doctor warned her that the next twenty-four hours still mattered.
Every ache made Elena imagine the worst.
That fear was the one thing she had never prepared to fake.
Reese arrived shortly after midnight with a paper cup of coffee and a grim expression.
"Thomas Vale is missing."
Elena pushed herself higher against the pillows.
"Since when?"
"His car is still at the mansion."
"His phone is off."
"There was enough blood in the storage cabinet to concern us."
Elena remembered Thomas as Adrian's quiet shadow.
He scheduled meetings, arranged travel, and knew every person Adrian wanted kept away from official calendars.
Two weeks earlier, Thomas had cornered Elena in the pantry.
"Stop looking into the foundation accounts," he had whispered.
At the time, she assumed he was threatening her.
Now she wondered whether he had been warning her.
"Did he remove the recorder?"
Reese shook his head.
"We don't know."
"The cabinet was opened with Adrian's access code."
Elena stared at him.
"Adrian knows the cameras exist?"
"He knows something exists."
Reese placed a printed photograph on the bedside table.
It showed Adrian entering a downtown parking garage three nights earlier.
Vanessa was beside him.
Thomas followed twenty feet behind.
"This came from a traffic camera."
Elena studied the image.
"Why were you watching Adrian?"
Reese did not answer immediately.
"Because your report about threats overlapped with a financial investigation."
Elena felt cold despite the blanket.
"What financial investigation?"
"The Howard Family Foundation moved twelve million dollars through three shell companies in nine months."
"One of those companies paid Vanessa."
Elena stopped breathing for a moment.
The affair suddenly looked smaller than the crime surrounding it.
"How much?"
"Eight hundred thousand dollars."
Her eyes burned.
Adrian had accused Elena of caring about money while secretly transferring a fortune to his mistress.
Reese leaned forward.
"There's more."
"Thomas accessed those accounts repeatedly."
"He may have copied records."
Elena looked toward the hospital window.
Rain ran across the glass in thin silver lines.
"So if Thomas disappeared, it may have nothing to do with the staircase."
"Or it has everything to do with it."
Reese's phone vibrated.
He read the message and stood immediately.
"What is it?"
He looked at Elena.
"Your mansion cameras just came back online."
Hope surged through her.
Then Reese's expression stopped it.
"Someone is inside your house right now."
"They know exactly where the hidden cameras are."
On his phone screen, a masked figure reached upward toward camera three.
The image shook.
Then the feed went black.
Elena asked Reese whether Maria had mentioned the signal near the library.
He had already interviewed her.
Maria claimed she found a torn piece of Thomas's shirt behind a shelf but hid it when Adrian entered.
The fabric carried a faint chemical smell and a smear of blood.
Forensics identified traces of a sedative used in medical settings.
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That connected Thomas's disappearance to someone with access to drugs, money, or both.
Elena suddenly remembered Adrian meeting her doctor privately after her last prenatal appointment.
