Chapter 6 - The Fortress in the Woods
St. Jude Palliative Care sat high on a ridge in northern Westchester County, surrounded by five hundred acres of dense, private timberland.
It had originally been built in the 1930s as a private sanitarium for wealthy families whose children suffered from what were then called 'nervous afflictions.' Today, it was an ultra-exclusive, twenty-bed end-of-life hospice where tech moguls, media executives, and old-money heirs spent their final days in soundproofed suites surrounded by marble fireplaces and private gardens.
It had no flashing red emergency signs. No chaotic ambulances idling outside. Only a discreet limestone gatehouse, a private security detail in gray blazers, and a perimeter wall topped with wrought iron.
Marcus parked the sedan three-quarters of a mile down the private access road, tucking the car behind an abandoned stone pump house.
The rain had turned into a steady, freezing mist.
Naomi pulled on a dark canvas utility jacket Marcus had pulled from his trunk, along with a pair of heavy leather gloves.
"Suites run along the west wing on the ground floor," Marcus said, laying a laminated blueprint across the steering wheel. "I pulled these from the county building department three years ago when Evelyn was considering a donation. Suite 104 is the isolation room—closest to the private ambulance bay, furthest from the nurses' station."
"Security?" Naomi asked.
"Two guards at the gatehouse. One at the main reception. But Voss uses his own private staff inside the wing. You won't be dealing with nurses who took the Hippocratic Oath; you'll be dealing with contract workers who are paid five thousand dollars a week to ask zero questions and keep their mouths shut."
Marcus reached under the driver’s seat and pulled out a small, heavy black object. He handed it to Naomi.
A stun gun. Commercial grade, high voltage.
"Don't kill anybody," Marcus said softly. "The moment a body drops, this stops being a domestic rescue and turns into a federal manhunt. We need Evelyn alive, and we need Adrian to see the truth with his own eyes."
"Where will you be?" Naomi asked, sliding the device into her jacket pocket.
"I’m meeting Adrian’s lead corporate counsel, David Cole, at the diner in Bedford," Marcus said. "I’m going to show him the 1974 addendum and the lab report from Greenwich. Cole isn't stupid. He’s protected the Vale family for thirty years. Once he sees that vecuronium was detected in Evelyn’s blood, he’ll have an emergency court order signed by a New York state supreme court judge within two hours."
"Two hours might be too late," Naomi said.
"Then buy us those two hours," Marcus replied, his eyes holding hers. "Don't let Voss push that syringe."
Naomi nodded, opened the passenger door, and slipped out into the freezing woods.
The forest floor was thick with rotting pine needles and wet moss, muffling her footsteps as she moved parallel to the stone wall. She reached the southwest corner of the property where a decorative stone drainage culvert ran beneath the perimeter fence. It was narrow, choked with dead leaves and iron bars, but the gap between the middle bars was wide enough for a determined woman who didn't care about tearing her clothes.
Naomi dropped to her knees, crawled through the freezing mud, and squeezed through the opening. The stone scraped her hip and shoulder, but she pulled herself through into the manicured rhododendron beds of the hospice grounds.
She rose, shaking the mud from her sleeves, and surveyed the building.
The west wing was single-story, with floor-to-ceiling glass patio doors leading out to private flagstone terraces. The drapes in Suite 104 were drawn, but through the sheer white fabric, she could see the faint blue glow of a medical monitor and the silhouette of a figure standing beside the bed.
Dr. Voss.
Naomi moved from bush to bush, keeping low.
As she reached the edge of the stone terrace, she saw Adrian’s black town car parked near the front roundabout, its headlights off. Adrian was standing fifty yards away under the portico, his phone pressed to his ear, pacing back and forth like a caged wolf. Celeste was not with him.
*Where is she?* Naomi thought.
Then she heard the faint click of a door latch.
Naomi pressed herself flat against the brick chimney stack at the corner of the terrace.
The sliding glass door of Suite 104 slid open two inches.
Celeste stepped out onto the damp flagstone, holding a silver cigarette lighter. Her hands were shaking. She lit a thin white cigarette, inhaled deeply, and stared out into the darkness of the woods.
Her silk blouse was rumpled. The twelve-carat diamond on her finger caught the pale exterior lights of the pathway.
"Are you done yet?" Celeste whispered into the room behind her.
Dr. Voss’s voice came from inside, muffled and clinical. "The preliminary IV drip is set. I’m waiting for the potassium chloride to clear the pharmacy safe. We have twenty minutes before the night shift signs in."
"Adrian is losing his mind out there," Celeste spat, her voice laced with venom. "He wants to come back in. He keeps talking about getting a third opinion from Columbia Presbyterian."
"Keep him outside," Voss ordered. "Tell him she’s resting comfortably. Tell him the transport exhausted her. If he comes in here while I’m administering the bolus, it’s over for all of us."
"Just hurry up," Celeste hissed. "I want to be back at the estate by midnight. The wedding rehearsal is supposed to be rescheduled for tomorrow morning, and I won't have the press sniffing around until the ink on the marriage license is dry."
She took one last drag of the cigarette, flicked the butt into the azalea bushes, and slid the glass door shut.
Naomi waited ten seconds until Celeste’s heels clicked down the interior hallway toward the front lobby.
Then Naomi stepped onto the terrace.
The sliding door was locked from the inside, but the latch was an ordinary residential deadbolt. Naomi pulled a thin steel tension wrench and pick from her coat pocket—tools she had learned to use years ago when Evelyn’s dementia-ridden sister used to lock herself in the estate bathrooms.
Three seconds of delicate pressure.
*Snick.*
The latch yielded.
May you like
Naomi slid the door open six inches and stepped into the dim, warm interior of Suite 104.
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