Chapter 13 - The Person No One Suspected.
Elena immediately ordered officers to seize every electronic device on the floor.
Daniel tried restarting the secured page.
The server refused the connection.
Arthur's evidence had reached ninety-four percent and then disappeared.
Emma felt fury replace exhaustion.
"Who could stop Grandpa's system?"
Daniel looked at the three authentication devices.
"Someone who helped him build it."
The answer came from Dr. Mercer.
He stood at the waiting-room door, pale and breathing hard.
"Thomas."
Emma stared at him.
"Thomas saved us."
"I know."
Dr. Mercer stepped inside.
"But he also worked security for Arthur for twenty-five years."
Elena shook her head.
"Thomas is unconscious in intensive care."
"Not anymore."
Mercer held up a nurse's tablet.
A security image showed Thomas leaving intensive care less than three minutes earlier wearing a stolen orderly jacket.
Daniel stared at the screen.
"He was barely breathing."
"He received the antidote quickly."
Emma remembered Thomas being struck by the syringe.
Too conveniently.
Too visibly.
She hated herself for thinking it.
Emily whispered, "He knew every hidden passage."
Elena's face hardened.
"And he knew exactly where the evidence room was."
Daniel stood.
"Why would Arthur trust him?"
Emma looked at the grey bunny.
"Maybe Grandpa didn't."
Everyone turned toward her.
"Thomas told us Grandpa paid him to learn the tunnels."
"But we never heard Grandpa say that."
Elena pulled up old employment records.
Thomas Reed had worked at St. Catherine's during the years Margaret's network moved children through false medical records.
His name appeared on three security logs that had once been marked missing.
Daniel swore under his breath.
"He wasn't investigating the kidnappings."
"He was protecting them."
A hospital alarm sounded near the service elevators.
Elena ran.
Emma and Emily followed despite Daniel telling them to stay behind.
They reached the old maternity corridor just as smoke rolled from a stairwell door.
Thomas stood at the far end beside the damaged server cabinet.
He no longer looked weak.
A pistol hung in his right hand.
A portable drive was connected to Arthur's backup server.
Elena raised her weapon.
"Step away from it."
Thomas smiled sadly.
"Arthur always said you would become a good detective."
Elena's voice shook with anger.
"You helped Margaret steal me."
Thomas's smile disappeared.
"I drove the car."
Emma felt Emily's hand close around hers.
Thomas continued.
"I spent thirty years trying to undo one night."
Daniel approached slowly.
"Then why stop the upload?"
Thomas looked toward the portable drive.
"Because Arthur's archive contains names that would destroy innocent families along with the guilty ones."
Elena laughed bitterly.
"You mean it contains your name."
Thomas did not deny it.
The portable drive reached ninety-eight percent.
Emma realized he was not deleting the files.
He was copying them.
"Where are you taking it?"
Thomas looked at her.
"Some truths need a gatekeeper."
Emma's expression hardened.
"That's what Vanessa thought."
The words hit him harder than Elena's gun.
Thomas looked away.
Then a shot cracked through the corridor.
Thomas jerked backward.
The pistol fell from his hand.
Everyone turned.
Vanessa stood behind them holding an officer's stolen handgun.
Blood ran from a cut over her eyebrow.
May you like
"No more gatekeepers," she said.
Then she aimed at the portable drive.
