Chapter 14 - The Missing Key
"Calvin," Emilio said.
Rafael shook his head.
"Voss."
Emilio stared.
"He was here this morning before I collapsed."
Mara cursed.
"The key was in your jacket."
"It was."
"Your jacket was hanging outside Rafael's room while we spoke to the neurologist."
Rafael nodded.
"Voss asked a nurse where you were."
Emilio called Marcus.
No answer.
Called again.
Still nothing.
Pike's voice came through Mara's phone.
"We found Marcus's SUV in the lower garage. Blood on the driver's seat."
Emilio's stomach dropped.
"Whose?"
"Unknown."
Then another message from Tessa.
VOSS HOUSE. MIDNIGHT. ALONE.
Ava appeared again.
This time she looked directly into the camera.
"Daddy, don't come."
Tessa grabbed her chin.
"Say what I told you."
Ava bit her.
Tessa screamed.
The video cut.
Emilio almost crushed the phone in his hand.
Mara grabbed his wrist.
"Do not go alone."
"They have my daughter."
"They expect you to behave like a father instead of a target."
"I am a father."
"Then survive long enough to get her back."
Pike found Voss's house: a cliffside estate outside Malibu, owned through a holding company.
Federal agents prepared a covert entry.
Emilio hated every second of waiting.
At eleven-fifty, he drove toward the property with a tracking transmitter sewn into his coat.
Pike's team moved through the hills.
Mara stayed with Rafael.
At the gate, Calvin stepped from the shadows.
His face was bruised from the gala.
"Phone."
Emilio handed it over.
"Weapon."
"I don't have one."
Calvin searched him.
Then smiled.
"You always thought money made you powerful."
"No. People made me powerful. I just picked the wrong ones."
Calvin's smile faded.
He led Emilio through the house.
Ava and Elena were nowhere in sight.
Voss waited in the library.
Seventy years old.
Silver hair.
Perfect suit.
The man who had handled Emilio's first house, marriage contract, daughter's trust, and wife's estate.
On the desk sat the red key.
Voss tapped it.
"Lucia was very clever."
Emilio stared at him.
"You killed her."
"No."
"You built the plan."
"Yes."
The honesty was worse.
"Why Ava?"
Voss smiled faintly.
"Because Ava doesn't merely inherit your money."
He slid a document across the desk.
"She inherits the thing your family never told you existed."
Emilio read the first line.
VEGA MUNICIPAL SYSTEMS - CLASS A VOTING TRUST.
Voss leaned back.
"Your seven-year-old daughter controls contracts worth more than your entire public company."
Then a scream came from somewhere under the house.
May you like
Ava.
And Calvin locked the library door.
