Chapter 5 - THE MAN BEHIND REEDAlistair Voss lived in a house without family photographs.
That was the first thing Reed noticed when he woke.
No portraits. No vacation pictures. No smiling children in silver frames. Only walls of dark wood, old maps, antique weapons, and glass cases filled with medical patents that should have belonged to other people.
Reed sat upright too quickly.
Pain cracked through his skull.
His wrists were tied to the arms of a leather chair.
Across the room, Alistair Voss poured tea.
“You were always too theatrical,” the old man said.
Reed swallowed. “Where am I?”
“In the last room where anyone is still interested in hearing your side.”
Reed pulled against the restraints. “This is kidnapping.”
Alistair smiled.
“At my age, labels become less frightening.”
He carried the teacup to a chair opposite Reed and sat with careful grace. At seventy-six, he was thin but not fragile. His eyes were pale gray, his hands steady, his suit immaculate.
Reed had known Alistair for twelve years.
Never as a friend.
Never exactly as an employer.
Alistair preferred arrangements without names.
He had found Reed after Reed’s first career disgrace, when a falsified trial report should have ended him. Instead, Alistair made the report disappear and gave Reed a new future.
One assignment.
Get close to Maren Whitaker.
Reed had done more than get close.
He had married her.
And failed to kill her.
Alistair sipped his tea.
“Vivian is alive,” he said.
Reed’s mouth went dry.
“I didn’t know.”
“No. That is why you failed.”
Reed’s fear sharpened into anger. “You told me Maren was the final obstacle.”
“She was supposed to be.”
“You said the mother was dead.”
Alistair set down the cup.
“I said everyone believed she was dead. There is a difference.”
Reed stared.
The old man smiled faintly.
“You heard what you wanted because greed makes men deaf.”
Reed forced himself to breathe slowly.
“I can still fix this.”
“No.”
“I know Maren. I know how she thinks.”
Alistair’s expression became almost amused.
“Do you?”
Reed leaned forward as far as the restraints allowed.
“She’ll go after the company first. Then the accident. Then the father’s death. She’ll think truth is enough. She always does.”
Alistair studied him.
“And what is enough?”
Reed’s voice lowered.
“Celeste.”
At the mention of her name, Alistair’s eyes cooled.
“Your mistress?”
“My liability,” Reed said. “She’ll talk.”
“She already has.”
Reed closed his eyes briefly.
Of course she had.
Celeste had always wanted to be chosen. People who wanted to be chosen were easy to break.
Alistair stood and walked to one of the glass cases.
Inside lay an old Whitaker patent sketch, dated twenty-three years earlier.
“Maren’s father believed medicine should be moral,” Alistair said. “Do you know what that kind of man is called in business?”
Reed said nothing.
“Temporary.”
Alistair touched the glass.
“He built technology that could have reduced lifelong dependency for spinal injury patients. Good for humanity. Disastrous for certain markets. Long-term care. Pain management. Device replacement. Insurance routing. Rehabilitation contracts. Billions depend on people not fully recovering.”
Reed had heard pieces before, but never the whole truth spoken so plainly.
“And Maren?” Reed asked.
“She controls the patents.”
“Then kill her.”
Alistair turned.
Reed realized his mistake immediately.
The old man’s voice became soft.
“I tried that. Through you.”
Reed’s pulse jumped.
Alistair walked back toward him.
“You were given money, access, protection, and a clear instruction: make her legally irrelevant. Death was acceptable. Incapacity was preferable. Public sympathy was useful. But you made it personal.”
Reed’s jaw tightened.
“Maren discovered the transfers.”
“Because you got greedy.”
“She would have exposed me.”
“Yes,” Alistair said. “And now she will expose us.”
Reed looked toward the window. It was dark outside. He did not know if they were still in the city.
“What do you want?”
Alistair smiled.
“At last. A useful question.”
He removed a document from the table and placed it in Reed’s lap.
Reed looked down.
A sworn statement.
Already prepared.
In it, Reed confessed to acting alone. Poisoning Maren. Manipulating Celeste. Forging documents. Attempting to steal assets.
No mention of Alistair.
No mention of the board conspiracy.
No mention of the accident or Maren’s father.
Reed laughed once.
“You want me to be the monster.”
“You are a monster.”
“But not the only one.”
Alistair leaned close.
“No. Just the one people will believe in.”
Reed’s eyes lifted.
“And if I refuse?”
Alistair nodded toward the door.
A screen on the wall activated.
Celeste appeared.
She sat in what looked like a safe house bedroom, still in custody but no longer at the police station. Her hair was messy. Her hands shook around a paper cup.
Reed frowned.
“What is this?”
The camera angle shifted.
A window behind Celeste.
Across the street, a man sat in a parked car.
Watching.
Alistair said, “She is very frightened. Frightened people make tragic decisions.”
Reed’s throat tightened.
He hated Celeste.
He had used her.
But seeing her framed like prey made something unfamiliar move inside him.
Not love.
Ownership, perhaps.
Or rage that someone else had control of what belonged to him.
“You touch her,” Reed said, “and I talk.”
Alistair smiled.
“There he is.”
Reed stared at him.
“The selfish man pretending to have loyalty. I wondered if he was still alive.”
The screen went black.
Alistair placed a pen on Reed’s lap.
“Sign.”
Reed looked at the document.
Every instinct screamed at him to survive.
He had survived scandal, poverty, humiliation, rejection. He had rebuilt himself from nothing. He had not crawled into Maren’s life to end as Alistair’s disposable pawn.
Slowly, Reed smiled.
“No.”
Alistair’s expression did not change.
“No?”
Reed leaned back.
“You need me quiet. That means I still have value.”
The room went still.
Alistair studied him for a long moment.
Then he laughed softly.
“Perhaps Maren was not the only one I underestimated.”
Reed’s smile widened.
“Get me out of the country. Give me money. I disappear. Maren gets her villain. You keep your empire.”
Alistair walked to the window.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he asked, “And Celeste?”
Reed did not hesitate long enough.
“She knows too much.”
Alistair turned back.
“Good.”
That night, Celeste Whitaker woke inside a government-protected safe house because someone tapped on her bedroom window from the outside.
She froze.
The safe house was on the third floor.
There was no balcony.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Celeste’s breath caught.
Then her phone lit up on the nightstand.
Unknown number.
One message.
REED CHOSE HIMSELF.
A second message appeared.
NOW CHOOSE BETTER.
Attached was a video.
Reed’s voice filled the room.
“She knows too much.”
Celeste dropped the phone as if it burned her.
Outside the window, the tapping stopped.
May you like
And downstairs, Detective Ortiz received an anonymous package containing a flash drive, three photographs, and one handwritten note:
ASK CELESTE ABOUT THE NIGHT MAREN LOST HER LEGS.
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