Chapter 6 - THE LITTLE GIRL WHO SAW EVERYTHING
I screamed Sophia's name even though she couldn't hear me.
Cross grabbed my shoulders. Vanessa watched the phone with a satisfied little smile.
Then the gloved hand vanished.
Sophia turned.
Nobody was there.
The study door swung shut.
Vanessa frowned.
"What happened?"
I knew.
Sophia had seen the reflection in the dark monitor.
She had learned to survive in a hearing world by watching what everyone else missed-shadows, lips, hands, vibrations, faces reflected in glass.
She had moved before the stranger reached her.
I slammed my head backward into Cross's nose.
He cursed. I tore free and ran.
Vanessa fired.
The bullet struck a metal watering can beside me.
I crashed through the greenhouse door and raced down the hall.
"Sophia!"
Nathan appeared at the far end, carrying Dr. Price over one shoulder.
"Where is she?" I shouted.
"With Mrs. Alvarez. Pantry safe room."
I almost collapsed.
He caught me. "Maya, breathe."
"Cross is with Vanessa. They have a gun."
"We know."
Behind him, Mark was trying to revive the security system from a wall panel.
Nathan's hearing aid squealed sharply.
He ripped it out.
"Elliot says stop using these. They were modified."
I stared. "Modified how?"
Dr. Price, pale and shaking, answered. "To amplify the frequencies he was already struggling to process. It made the symptoms feel worse."
Someone had not only poisoned Nathan.
They had engineered the illusion of a man falling apart.
Nathan looked furious, but something else sat beneath it.
Shame.
"I signed over temporary voting authority to Vanessa last month," he said.
"What?"
"I thought my condition was getting worse. I thought I might become incompetent."
"How much control did you give her?"
"Enough to move board votes. Enough to freeze accounts. Enough to push through the merger next week."
Dr. Price swallowed. "That merger transfers Cole BioSystems' sensory-neural patent portfolio."
Nathan went still.
"To whose company?" I asked.
He looked at the burned glow of the greenhouse behind us.
"Vanessa's brother's."
May you like
Then the front gates opened by themselves.
Three black SUVs drove onto the property.
