Chapter 3 - The Clock Keeps Ticking
By midnight, the burn unit had quieted into a realm of low-toned machine hums and hushed rubber soles.
The magnesium drip had managed to stall my contractions for the moment, but the pain across my thighs felt like a permanent sheet of sandpaper rubbing against raw nerves. Bandages ran from my upper thighs down to my knees. Every slight shift of my hips sent white-hot spikes through my pelvis.
The heavy door to my private room clicked open.
A tall man in a charcoal suit, his tie loosened and an overcoat slung across his forearm, stepped inside. His jaw was square, shadow-dusted with evening stubble, and his dark eyes burned with intense, focused fury.
“Claire,” Marcus Cole breathed, closing the door behind him and immediately throwing the deadbolt lock.
Marcus had been my father’s apprentice fifteen years ago before putting himself through law school. When my father was dying, Marcus spent nights sleeping on the armchair in our living room, helping me lift Dad into his wheelchair. Marcus wasn't just my lawyer. He was the brother my father never had a son to be.
He pulled a wooden chair close to the bed, his knuckles white against his leather briefcase.
“Dr. Ramos briefed me,” Marcus said, his voice a low, controlled growl. “I’ve already filed an emergency protective petition with Judge Harris. It’s sitting on his desk for a morning signature. Tell me everything.”
I didn't waste breath on tears. The morphine had dulled the sharpest edge of the physical burn, leaving my mind clear, icy, and lethal.
“Ryan pushed me into the boiling chicken soup. Patricia stood there, watched me scream, and said: *‘Maybe now she’ll stop being selfish.’*”
Marcus’s jaw clenched so hard I heard his molars grind. “Did they say anything else?”
“Ryan told me to lie. He said if I told the truth, he would claim I was mentally unstable and have the state take our baby.” I looked directly into Marcus’s eyes. “He’s desperate, Marcus. His creditors are circling. He had the refinancing transfer paperwork ready on the table.”
Marcus leaned forward, opening his briefcase. “Without physical evidence, Claire, domestic assault cases turn into ‘he-said, she-said’ nightmares. He has his mother backing his story. He’ll claim you slipped, you panicked, you knocked the pot. The DA might hesitate to press aggravated assault charges without undeniable proof.”
A thin, cold smile touched my cracked lips.
“Marcus. Do you remember Dad’s workshop in the basement? The back panel behind the vintage ham radio station?”
Marcus stopped. His pen hovered above his yellow legal pad. His eyes slowly widened. “Thomas’s defense grid setup?”
“Two months before he passed, Dad noticed Ryan snooping through his tax returns,” I said quietly. “He didn't trust him. He never trusted him. Dad installed an optical fiber line running from the kitchen pantry clock straight down through the heating ducts into a standalone local server rack behind the basement insulation. It’s hardwired. It’s not connected to the home Wi-Fi. It writes directly to an encrypted dual-drive RAID array.”
Marcus stood up so fast his chair screeched against the linoleum.
“The clock above the pantry?” Marcus whispered. “The one with the carved sparrow?”
“The lens is right beneath the twelve. It records 4K video at sixty frames per second with dual directional microphones. Dad set it to run on an uninterrupted thirty-day overwrite loop.”
Marcus checked his wristwatch. It was 12:45 AM.
“If Ryan and Patricia are at the house right now, do they know about it?” Marcus asked.
“No. Ryan always laughed at that clock. He called it an ugly piece of junk and asked three times if we could throw it in the trash. But Marcus... if they go through Dad’s tools in the basement, if they start cleaning up the kitchen and see anything unusual...”
“They won’t have the chance,” Marcus said, pulling his coat back on. “I’m not waiting for morning. I’m calling Detective Miller from the domestic violence unit. We’re going to the house with an emergency preservation order tonight.”
“Wait,” I reached out, my fingers wrapping around his wrist. “The encryption key. Dad made sure nobody could open the server without two physical keys.”
“Where are they?”
“One is the silver pendant around my neck,” I said, lifting the small chain from under my hospital gown. Hanging from it was a tiny, stylized silver key with complex laser-cut grooves. “The second key... is hidden in Dad’s safe deposit box at First National Bank.”
Marcus took the silver key, holding it up against the dim light.
“And the bank box key?”
“In my jewelry box on my dresser at Elm Street,” I said, my heart sinking. “In the master bedroom.”
May you like
Right where Ryan and Patricia were sleeping.
***
