Chapter 7 - The Attack on Howard and the Photograph Bailey Kept

Howard was supposed to meet Mara at seven the next morning.

He never arrived.

At 7:26, Bailey received a call from Tasha.

“Don’t panic,” Tasha said immediately, which guaranteed panic. “Howard’s at Mercy.”

Bailey was already reaching for her coat.

“What happened?”

“They found him behind the employee garage.”

The emergency department was louder than Northwestern had been, less polished and more familiar. Bailey found Howard behind a curtain with six stitches above his eyebrow, two cracked fingers, and a purple bruise spreading across his jaw.

He looked embarrassed.

“You should see the other guy,” he said.

“Did you?” Bailey asked.

“No.”

Mara stood at the foot of the bed.

“This wasn’t robbery,” she said. “Wallet still there. Watch still there. Whoever hit him searched his pockets.”

Howard’s humor disappeared.

“They kept asking for my phone.”

“Your phone was on the ground beside you,” Mara said.

“Not that phone.”

Bailey stared at him.

Howard looked toward the curtain before lowering his voice.

“Old security habit. I keep backups.”

From beneath his hospital blanket, he produced a battered flip phone.

Mara closed her eyes. “You concealed evidence after someone assaulted you?”

“I protected evidence before someone assaulted me.”

“What evidence?”

Howard handed Bailey the phone instead.

There was one photograph.

Taken through a security-office window eleven days earlier, it showed the freight-loading zone behind Meridian. The image was grainy, but the black town car with the silver scratch was visible.

So was Evan Rusk.

He stood beside another man.

Not Victor Hale.

Not Daniel Cross.

Mason Vale.

Victor’s assistant was handing him a white envelope.

“I took it because something looked wrong,” Howard said. “Rusk had a cleaning badge but he kept meeting people who never carried mops.”

“Why didn’t you report it?” Mara asked.

“I reported the car to my supervisor. He said chairman’s office contractors were none of my business.”

“Who’s your supervisor?”

“Security director named Allan Pierce.”

Priya, who had arrived with Lucas’s security attorney, said quietly, “Pierce reports to Daniel Cross during continuity events.”

The circle kept tightening around the same office.

Bailey looked at Howard’s bruised face and felt anger replace fear.

“You could have been killed.”

He shrugged carefully. “I’m old. Everything could kill me.”

“That’s not funny.”

“No. But you looked like you needed it to be.”

Lucas arrived twenty minutes later despite Mara’s objections and Dr. Patel’s more distant ones. He wore a dark coat over a sweater instead of a suit. Without the armor of his office, he looked tired and younger.

Howard tried to sit straighter.

“Boss.”

“Don’t call me that while you’re wearing a hospital bracelet.”

Howard smiled.

Lucas saw the photograph and went silent.

“Mason works for Victor,” he said.

“Yes,” Mara replied.

“Then maybe Daniel’s office was used as cover.”

“Maybe.”

Lucas glanced at Bailey.

She could tell what he wanted: a simple answer with Victor at the center. Victor approved questionable invoices. Victor pushed the incapacity vote. Victor’s assistant paid the fake worker.

It was almost too neat.

Bailey said nothing until they left Howard’s room.

Then Lucas asked, “You think I’m wrong.”

“I think you want to be right.”

“About Victor?”

“About Daniel not being involved.”

His expression closed.

“You met Daniel for thirty seconds.”

“I’m not judging his soul. I’m judging the same evidence you are.”

“You don’t know what he did for my family.”

“No.”

“My father died when I was twenty-four. Daniel kept Meridian from being carved apart by creditors and opportunists. He taught me this company. He stood beside my mother at the funeral.”

Bailey heard the real sentence beneath all of them.

He loved him.

That made suspicion feel like betrayal.

“I hope he’s innocent,” she said.

Lucas looked at her for a long moment.

“That sounded sincere.”

“It was.”

His shoulders loosened slightly.

Lucas stayed with Howard after Mara finished questioning him. He adjusted the old guard’s blanket, then listened while Howard complained about hospital pudding with the gravity of a board presentation. Bailey watched from the doorway and understood something Daniel’s accusation had missed. Gratitude could distort judgment, yes. But seeing Lucas when he had nothing to gain from being kind made her own judgment harder to dismiss.

Then Bailey’s phone buzzed.

Another unknown number.

This time there were no words.

Only a photograph.

Her apartment door.

Taken from inside her apartment.

Lucas saw the blood drain from her face.

“What?”

She turned the screen toward him.

Beneath the photograph, a message appeared.

WE ASKED YOU TO STOP.

Bailey’s hand began to shake.

Lucas took the phone carefully, as if sudden movement might break something.

“We’re not going to your apartment,” he said.

“I need my things.”

“No.”

She looked up sharply.

He corrected himself.

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“You decide where you go. But you are not walking into that place alone.”

For once, Bailey did not argue.