Chapter 6 - The Hunt for Dr. Vance
The private medical suite of Dr. Victor Vance occupied the top floor of a discreet, limestone building on East Bellevue Place. There was no brass plaque on the exterior, only a frosted-glass door with a small digital intercom and a surveillance camera discreetly embedded in the molding.
At 4:15 AM, the street was dead. The rain had ceased, leaving behind slick, black asphalt that mirrored the streetlamps.
Marcus parked his SUV at the curb, directly behind a dark blue Mercedes sedan registered to Vance’s private practice.
"Two of my guys are stationed at the rear fire escape," Marcus said, checking the battery on a small handheld frequency jammer. "The building’s security system runs on a standard cellular uplink. Once I activate this, Vance won't be able to make an outside call, trigger a silent alarm, or access his cloud backups."
"Good," I said, stepping out of the passenger seat.
I had changed out of my blood-stained clothes into a dark wool coat and boots Marcus had brought from his apartment. In my pocket was the thumb drive containing the unedited video footage of Vance pinning my wife to our bed.
Marcus walked up to the exterior keypad, pulled a thin electronic decoder from his pocket, and attached it to the magnetic sensor. Within four seconds, the lock clicked with a heavy, mechanical clunk.
The reception area smelled of expensive leather, lavender air freshener, and burning paper.
A thin trail of gray smoke drifted from beneath the frosted-glass door of Vance’s private office at the end of the hall.
I didn't knock. I kicked the door open.
The wood slammed back against the drywall with a thunderous crack.
Dr. Victor Vance jumped so violently he dropped an armful of manila folders into a steel trash can that was already glowing with embers. In his left hand, he held a heavy bottle of prescription-grade scotch; his right forearm was bound in thick, white surgical gauze that was already seeping red where Lily’s glass shard had torn through his skin.
He stared at me, his eyes bloodshot, his face gray and sweat-sheened.
"Adam..." he gasped, stumbling backward against his mahogany desk. "How did you—the police—"
"The police aren't here, Victor," I said, closing the door behind Marcus. Marcus turned the lock and stepped to the side, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Get out," Vance whimpered, his voice trembling as he reached toward the desk phone. "Get out of my office or I’ll call—"
"You'll call who?" Marcus smiled coldly, holding up the frequency jammer. The red LED was pulsing steadily. "Your phone line is dead, Victor. Your cell phone has no service. And your private cloud server has been locked down by a digital freeze we initiated fifteen minutes ago through the SEC’s emergency whistleblower portal."
Vance’s hand froze hovering over the telephone receiver. He looked at me, his chest heaving, smelling of cheap whiskey and expensive terror.
"Adam, listen to me," Vance pleaded, his hands coming up in a gesture of surrender. "You don't understand the pressure I was under! Your mother... Eleanor has notes on every transaction I've made for thirty years! She held the mortgage on this building! She financed my daughter's medical school! If I didn't help her, she was going to ruin my life!"
"You held my wife down," I said, walking toward him, my voice dangerously low. Every step I took echoed in the small, smoke-filled room. "You put an unapproved chemical into the bloodstream of my unborn son. You watched her bleed on our rug, and you looked at your watch."
"I tried to stop her!" Vance sobbed, genuine tears spilling over his cheeks. "I told Eleanor the dose was too high! I told her it could kill Lily! But she didn't care! She said Lily was expendable as long as the child didn't survive!"
I stopped two inches from his desk. I leaned forward, resting both hands on the polished wood, staring straight into his watery, coward’s eyes.
"You are going to give me everything, Victor."
"Everything?"
"The lab records. The chemical invoices. The offshore wire transfers from Eleanor’s personal trust accounts to your Cayman corporation. Every single communication, email, encrypted text, and handwritten note she has given you for the last ten years."
"If I do that, she’ll have me killed," Vance whispered, his voice cracking. "You don't know what Eleanor is capable of, Adam. She doesn't just hire doctors. She has people on the board of the pharmaceutical commission. She has judges on her payroll."
"And if you don't do it," Marcus said from the door, "I hand this digital drive to the Cook County State’s Attorney within twenty minutes. It contains high-definition video of you administering a lethal compound during the commission of an aggravated felony burglary. That is attempted murder, Dr. Vance. That is aggravated battery of an unborn child. You won't be going to a minimum-security camp for white-collar fraud. You will spend the next forty years in Stateville Penitentiary. And with your reputation? You won't survive the first month."
Vance looked at the floor. His knees gave out, and he sank heavily into his leather executive chair, burying his face in his trembling, bandaged hands.
"The safe," he whispered, pointing a shaking finger toward the oil painting hanging on the west wall. "Behind the landscape. The combination is 14-22-88. There is an encrypted hard drive inside. It contains every wire transfer, every recorded telephone conversation I ever had with your mother since Julian died."
"Why did you record her?" I asked.
Vance looked up, a bitter, hollow smile touching his lips. "Because I knew that one day, she would ask me to do something that couldn't be undone. And I wanted to make sure that when the executioner came, I wasn't the only one standing on the scaffold."
Marcus moved to the painting, swung it open, and dialed the safe’s combination. The heavy steel door clicked and swung wide. Inside sat three black external hard drives, a stack of passports, and two sealed brown envelopes marked with Eleanor Carter’s private monogram.
Marcus slipped the hard drives into his satchel and looked at me. "We have her, Adam. This is everything."
"Not quite," I said, looking down at Vance. "We need one more thing from you, Victor."
Vance looked up, terrified. "What?"
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"You are going to call Eleanor," I said, sliding his desk phone toward him. "And you are going to tell her that Lily Carter died in the ICU twenty minutes ago."
***
