Chapter 8 - THE TRAITOR BESIDE HIM
Baldric stood completely still beside the hospital window, the phone pressed against his ear long after the mysterious caller had already stopped speaking.
Outside, the first gray light of morning was beginning to creep between the buildings, turning the city skyline into a collection of dark silhouettes. Nurses moved quietly through the corridor. Machines beeped behind closed doors. Somewhere in the distance, a cart rolled across the polished floor.
But Baldric heard none of it.
He was listening to the silence left behind by the voice on the phone.
A voice he had known for more than thirty years.
A voice he had trusted through business wars, family tragedies, funerals, weddings, and every crisis that had threatened to destroy the empire he had spent his life building.
He slowly lowered the phone.
Charles Whitmore studied his face.
“Who was that?”
Baldric didn't answer.
For several seconds, he simply stared through the glass at the city below.
Then he walked away from the window.
There was something different about his expression now.
The anger was still there.
But beneath it was something far more dangerous.
Recognition.
He walked down the hospital corridor toward Arianne's room.
Two detectives followed him.
Before Baldric could reach the door, a nurse hurried toward him.
“Mr. Baldric?”
He turned immediately.
“My daughter?”
“She asked me to tell you something.”
Baldric stepped closer.
“What did she remember?”
The nurse hesitated.
“She said she remembers the man who came into her room.”
Baldric's eyes narrowed.
“Who was he?”
“She couldn't see his face.”
For a moment, disappointment crossed his expression.
Then the nurse continued.
“But she remembers something else.”
“What?”
“His watch.”
Baldric went completely still.
“What about it?”
“She said it was silver. Very old-fashioned. And there was an engraving on the back.”
“What engraving?”
The nurse looked at the notes in her hand.
“A compass.”
The color slowly disappeared from Baldric's face.
Charles noticed it immediately.
“Baldric?”
Baldric didn't respond.
His eyes had become fixed on something far beyond the hospital walls.
Because he knew exactly what that watch looked like.
He had seen it hundreds of times.
There was only one man in his entire life who wore a silver watch engraved with a compass.
His older brother.
Elias.
The brother Baldric had buried twenty-five years ago.
The brother everyone believed had died in a highway accident.
The brother whose coffin Baldric had personally watched disappear beneath the earth.
Baldric finally whispered:
May you like
“Elias.”
And for the first time in twenty-five years, the name of his dead brother sounded like a threat.
