My father and brother poisoned my wine for an $8 million inheritance—so I switched glasses, and watched him collapse beside the Thanksgiving turkey fifteen minutes later.

“Stop them!” I shouted into the phone, lunging out of my chair. “He’s a suspect in an attempted murder investigation! He cannot leave!”

“We tried!” Dr. Klein said, the sound of commotion roaring in her background. “She showed up with a team of high-powered attorneys and a signed medical power of attorney dated prior to the incident! They claim he is being transferred to a private neurological facility in Switzerland for life-saving treatment! The local police stationed outside didn't have a formal hold order—only a detainment warrant for questioning!”

“We’re thirty minutes away,” Detective Vance said, already pulling his sidearm from its holster and running for the vault doors.

We didn't take thirty minutes. Vance hit the siren, tearing through Philadelphia traffic and running red lights along the Schuylkill Expressway like a man possessed.

When we screeched to a halt under the concrete overhang of St. Jude’s Hospital, the bay was already empty.

Sheriff Caldwell’s cruiser was parked diagonally across two ambulance lanes. Caldwell was standing in front of Dr. Vance—the family physician who had signed August’s death certificate—pinning the sweating, elderly doctor against a concrete pillar by his collar.

“Where is she taking him, Alan?!” Caldwell bellowed, his face red with fury.

“I don't know! Hank, please, I have a heart condition!” Dr. Vance wheezed, his round spectacles askew. “Eleanor called me at five in the morning! She promised to clear my gambling markers if I counter-signed the transport clearance! She said Conrad would die in custody!”

I pushed past the hospital security guards, staring at the empty bay.

“Where’s Reid?” I demanded.

Caldwell dropped the doctor, who collapsed against the pillar gasping for air. The sheriff turned to me, his expression grim.

“Reid made bail an hour ago. A cash bond of five hundred thousand dollars posted by an anonymous LLC based in the Cayman Islands. He walked out the back of the precinct before the federal detainer cleared the wire.”

“They're running,” I realized, my blood running cold. “All three of them.”

“Not all three,” Detective Vance interjected, scrolling furiously on his phone. “Look at the flight manifests out of Wings Field and Trenton-Mercer. An executive Gulfstream G550 filed a flight plan twenty minutes ago for Nassau, Bahamas. Passenger list: Eleanor Tolland, Dr. Alan Vance’s associate, and an unidentified bedridden patient.”

“Reid isn't on that plane,” I said.

“No,” Caldwell agreed, looking at me with sharp, sudden dread. “Reid’s tracker pinged off a cell tower four miles north of here ten minutes ago.”

Four miles north.

That wasn't toward the airport.

That was toward my private residence—the modest brownstone apartment I had purchased with my own savings, away from the toxic sprawl of the Tolland family estate.

And inside that apartment was Maya.