Chapter 2 - The Ghost of 2019
The sleek black Maybach tore through the rainy streets of Baltimore, tires screaming along the wet pavement of Roland Park. In the backseat, Elias wrapped Willa in his dry cashmere coat while the climate control blasted heat against her shivering limbs. Up front, his personal driver kept his eyes glued to the rearview mirror, aware of the two unmarked SUVs trailing closely behind carrying Sloan and her personal security detail.
Willa’s teeth chattered violently as she leaned against the leather seat. "Mr. Baron... you shouldn't have brought me along. They will kill Sam. She knows where Sam's clinic is."
"Nobody is touching your brother," Elias snarled, pulling his phone and dialing three digits. Within two rings, his voice barked orders into the receiver: "Brant. Take a four-man tactical team to the Greenbrier Neuro Rehab Center immediately. Extract Sam Doyle. Move him to the third-floor medical suite inside my private bunker in Annapolis. Anyone who approaches without my biometric pass gets two in the chest. Understood?"
He hung up without waiting for a reply, turning his gaze back to Willa. "Now tell me everything. Why were you searching through Cecilia's old records?"
Willa swallowed the lump of bile in her throat. She explained how she had been assigned to cross-reference the 2018–2020 container records for the internal audit. She recounted finding the bill of lading for eleven heavy shipping containers labeled as 'port maintenance equipment' leaving Baltimore for Norfolk in September 2019—months after Cecilia was laid to rest in the family mausoleum.
"And whose signature was on the clearance seal?" Elias asked, his jaw clenching so tight the tendon in his temple throbbed.
"Cecilia Baron," Willa whispered. "It was her exact looping script, complete with the small crescent flourish she always added at the tail of the 'n'. I thought it was an administrative oversight until I showed it to Sloan. The moment she saw the date, her expression turned completely blank. Not surprised. Not angry. Just cold. She told me to leave it on her desk, and when I went back to look for it at the mansion yesterday, the entire file folder had been bleached from the archives."
Elias looked out the tinted window as the iron gates of his sprawling Roland Park estate swung open. His thoughts raced back seven years. Cecilia had supposedly taken a small sailboat out into the harbor during an unexpected gale. The boat had overturned, and her body had been pulled from the freezing undertow three days later, battered by the rocks. Hollis Ward had been the one to identify the body, organize the sealed casket, and handle the police reports to protect the Baron family privacy.
"And then there's Hollis," Willa added, her voice dropping to a trembling register.
Elias snapped his head toward her. "What about Hollis? He raised me after my father died. He took a bullet for me in Chicago."
"Last night, around two in the morning, I saw him open the east gate," Willa murmured. "He met a tall, thin man with salt-and-pepper hair wearing a dark trench coat. Hollis handed him an unmarked brass key or a flash drive, and the man vanished into the woods. Hollis looked like he was watching for headlights. It wasn't an ordinary visit, Mr. Baron. The east gate has been bolted shut since the day Cecilia died."
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The Maybach halted smoothly before the stone portico of the mansion. The rain drummed mercilessly against the stone statues. Elias sat in silence for five agonizing seconds, processing the betrayal weaving through every corridor of his ancestral home.
"Come," he said, opening the door and extending his hand to Willa. "Let us see how deep this rot actually runs."
