Chapter 5 - The Missing Minute.
The doctor approached Willow with the syringe held low beside his leg.
Marisol stepped between them.
"Mrs. Sterling has not consented."
Lucas's voice became dangerously soft.
"You are an employee, Marisol."
"Not anymore."
She removed her apron and dropped it at his feet.
The doctor hesitated.
Willow lifted the burner phone from her hem and aimed its camera at the syringe.
"State your name and what you intend to inject."
The doctor's face drained of color.
He placed the syringe back in his bag.
"I was told she requested a sedative."
"She did not," Marisol said.
The doctor left before Lucas could stop him.
Lucas waited until the elevator closed.
Then he seized Marisol by the arm.
Willow struck the wall alarm with her palm.
The penthouse filled with a piercing siren.
Lucas released Marisol as building staff voices rose in the hallway.
"You have made this much worse," he told Willow.
"For you."
Security entered, but Lucas could no longer lock both women away without witnesses.
Marisol walked out carrying nothing but the burner phone's memory card.
Willow remained because the silver key was still inside Lucas's closed fist.
At dawn, he finally left for an emergency board meeting.
Willow used an old hairpin to open the guest-room latch.
The penthouse seemed empty.
She crossed the silent hall and entered Lucas's study.
A portrait of Caroline Vale hung above the fireplace.
Willow had believed it was a wedding gift.
Now she saw scratches along the frame.
She lifted the painting and found a steel safe embedded in the wall.
Beside the safe lay a child's wooden sailboat covered in dust.
Willow remembered painting it with Caroline one summer at the Vale marina.
Lucas had told her the toy was lost during their last move.
Its presence proved he had been collecting pieces of her past while denying they existed.
She turned the boat over and found three initials carved beneath it.
C.V., R.V., and W.V. formed a triangle around a small ash tree.
The symbol matched the crest on the old Ashcroft Trust papers.
Willow photographed it with the burner phone before trying the safe.
The lock accepted a key, but a digital pad demanded six numbers.
Willow entered her mother's birthday.
The display flashed red.
She tried the date of the boat accident.
Red again.
Then she remembered Evelyn's strange words in the lobby.
Your board still believes your wife died.
Willow entered the date Caroline had been legally declared dead, exactly seven years after her disappearance.
The light turned green.
The safe still required the silver key.
Willow heard the elevator arriving.
She lowered the portrait and hid behind the study door.
Lucas entered with Adrian Cole.
Adrian carried the same red metal case from Marisol's photograph.
"Camera Four has been erased," Adrian said.
"Not all of it," Lucas replied.
"There is a missing minute in the hotel archive."
"Then the photographer copied it."
Lucas opened the safe with the silver key.
Willow watched through the narrow space beside the door.
Inside were psychiatric reports, bank ledgers, and a sealed envelope bearing Caroline's handwriting.
Adrian placed the red case inside.
"Richard is searching the river," he said.
Lucas laughed.
"Let him."
"By tonight, Lena Park will be found with Willow's fingerprints in her car."
Willow's blood turned cold.
May you like
Lucas closed the safe and faced the door.
"You can come out now, Willow."
