Chapter 20: Elena's Wall

The chapel had no cross. It had been removed during renovation, leaving a pale rectangle on the wall above a cabinet of dead candles. Leah thought Elena Voss would have hated that. A room built for last prayers, stripped clean for liability. Megan barricaded the outer corridor with a gurney while Ethan held the chapel door. Men shouted from the far hall. "You have ninety seconds," he said. Leah searched the wall with shaking hands. "Where?" The records clerk, limping behind her, pointed to a loose panel near the floor. "Elena was bleeding. She said if the baby lived, someone would come looking for the truth." The baby lived. Leah pulled the panel free. Inside was a waterproof envelope, yellowed at the edges. Her name was written across it in a hand she had never seen. For Isabella Rose, when they tell her she belonged to them. The shouting grew closer. Ethan fired the lock jammer again. Sparks snapped from the door panel. "Leah." She opened the envelope. There was a letter, a photograph of Elena and James Voss, and a cassette tape labeled Crash Insurance. Nora still had a player. Leah shoved everything into her coat. The chapel door burst inward. Ethan caught the first man and drove him into the candle stand. Megan hit the second with a fire extinguisher. Leah saw a third raise a gun. She did not think. She threw the metal cross from the cabinet at his face. The shot went wide, exploding a plaster angel above Ethan's shoulder. Security alarms screamed. They ran through a maintenance stairwell into the ambulance bay. Megan dragged the records clerk into the rideshare. Ethan pushed Leah toward his car. Then headlights flooded the bay. Sebastian stepped from a black SUV, gun lowered at his side, rain shining in his hair. "I knew it," he said. Leah stopped. Ethan moved in front of her. Sebastian smiled at him. "Do you know who you are protecting, Hunt? Or does only the broken half remember?" Ethan's body went rigid. Leah felt the change before she saw it. The cold banker disappeared. The gentler Ethan surfaced with terror in his eyes. "Bella," he whispered. Sebastian heard it. His smile widened. "There she is," he said, raising the gun. "The dead heiress."