Chapter 5 - THE MAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD
Daniel Moss refused to speak over the phone for more than thirty seconds. He gave Adrian a location, warned him not to involve local police, and hung up. The address belonged to a shuttered auto-repair shop forty miles north of Vale House, near the mountain road where Claire’s crash had happened five years earlier.
Adrian wanted to leave immediately. His new attorney wanted ten armed guards and a warrant. Nora wanted Lily nowhere near another moving vehicle. In the end, Adrian compromised only slightly. He left Lily with Nora inside the estate’s most secure wing, took two independent security officers, and drove north in an unmarked sedan before sunrise.
The mountains emerged through gray rain like old scars. Adrian had not traveled that road since the anniversary of Claire’s death three years earlier. Every curve returned with brutal clarity. He remembered the bent guardrail. He remembered the burned shell of the car below the ravine. He remembered Gregory standing beside him under an umbrella, one hand on his shoulder, saying there had been no suffering.
The repair shop smelled of oil and damp metal. Daniel Moss waited behind a hydraulic lift, older than Adrian remembered, thinner, with a scar crossing his left cheek. He kept glancing toward the windows. “You should be dead,” Adrian said.
Daniel gave a humorless smile. “That was the idea.” He told his story without asking forgiveness. On the night of the crash, he had noticed the brake pedal weakening several miles before the descent. A black SUV followed too closely. When Daniel tried to slow, the SUV struck them twice, forcing the car toward the ravine. He aimed for the hillside, but the steering failed at the final curve.
Daniel woke in St. Orison clinic with a broken shoulder and three cracked ribs. Gregory Ashford came to his room personally. He offered Daniel money, a new identity, and a threat: disappear, or Daniel’s younger brother would be charged with a financial crime Gregory had already prepared evidence to support.
“I took the deal,” Daniel said. Adrian’s fists tightened. “Claire was alive two rooms away.” “I didn’t know until later.” “You heard her.” Daniel looked down. “I heard a woman crying. I was drugged. I thought I was imagining it.”
Adrian wanted to hit him. Instead, he asked the only useful question. “Why contact me now?” Daniel walked to a locked cabinet and removed a small black case. Inside was a damaged vehicle data recorder and a memory card sealed in plastic. He had taken them from the crash before the car was moved, intending to use them as insurance. He had lived under assumed names ever since, watching Gregory grow more powerful.
“Three weeks ago, someone found me,” Daniel said. “They searched my apartment. They asked about a child.” Adrian felt the room sharpen around that word. Daniel handed him the memory card. It contained footage from a rear-facing dash camera. The image was grainy, but the black SUV was visible. So was part of its license plate.
The vehicle had been registered to Ashford Protective Services. Adrian closed his eyes briefly. There was more. Daniel had copied audio from the clinic hallway using a recorder he kept for mileage notes. Most of it was distorted, but one exchange was clear enough.
A male voice said, “The baby complicates the trust.” Another answered, “Then the baby disappears with the mother.” Adrian recognized Gregory’s voice. The second voice was unfamiliar. Daniel said he believed it belonged to a doctor named Malcolm Haines, then the medical director of St. Orison. Haines had vanished overseas six months after the crash.
Adrian’s lawyer began arranging federal contact immediately. The scale of the fraud now crossed state lines, banking systems, medical records, and evidence tampering. But Adrian knew Gregory would not wait for formal procedure. He had already tried to seize Lily and steal DNA evidence.
On the drive back to Vale House, Adrian received a message from Vivian. PLEASE DO NOT TRUST OWEN PRICE. No explanation followed. He called. Vivian did not answer. When Adrian reached the estate, the front gate was open.
His stomach dropped. The new guards were gone from the checkpoint. One lay unconscious inside the booth, breathing but bleeding from the temple. Adrian’s car had not fully stopped before he jumped out. He ran across the entrance hall, shouting Lily’s name.
No answer. He found Nora in the protected suite, wrists bound with a lamp cord. She was conscious, furious, and terrified. “They took her,” she gasped. “Owen had the code. He said you sent him.” Adrian cut the cord.
“Who was with him?” “A woman in a gray coat. I couldn’t see her face.” Vivian’s warning flashed through his mind. He called Owen. The phone was dead. Then a video message arrived from an unknown number. Lily sat in the back seat of a moving car, still wearing the ivory dress from the gala, a blanket around her shoulders. She looked frightened but unharmed. Owen sat beside her. The camera turned briefly toward Gregory Ashford in the front passenger seat.
“Bring the original ledger and the flash drive to St. Orison,” Gregory said. “No police, no federal agents, no heroic mistakes. You know what I’m willing to erase.” The video ended. Adrian stared at the screen until the image went black.
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Nora stood beside him. “The flash drive is with Vivian.” Adrian called her again. This time she answered. Her voice was shaking. “Adrian, my father knows I have it.” “Where are you?” A door slammed in the background.
Vivian whispered, “I’m already at St. Orison.” The line went dead. For five years, Adrian had lived with the belief that the worst night of his life was behind him. He finally understood the truth. That night had never ended.
