Chapter 7

Adrian didn't sleep that night. He drove back to the hospital and sat in the parking garage, watching the dawn bleed through the windows of St. Katherine's. His mind was a perfect storm — Marcus's face, Vivienne's confession, the passport books in the false-bottomed cart, and the owl stamped in their covers.

The owl. Marcus Page. The man who had held Adrian's hand through his darkest hours. The man who had listened to his grief, his doubts, his fears. The man who had known exactly where Sofia was, all along.

Adrian's finger found the contact on his phone and pressed call.

The line rang twice. A familiar voice answered, careful and measured.

"Mr. Frost. I was just about to call you. I've been reviewing the security logs from the hotel. I found something interesting."

Adrian's grip on the phone tightened. "What?"

"A badge swipe. About forty minutes before the incident. It matched an account that should have been deactivated — a former employee named Dmitri Kovac." Marcus's voice was smooth, professional. "Whoever reactivated it had administrative access. Those credentials are held by a small group — me, two IT directors, and the head of corporate security."

Adrian's heart was pounding. "And you're telling me this because...?"

"Because I think you should know that someone has been moving through your systems like they own them. And I think that someone might be closer than you'd like to believe." A pause. "Mr. Frost, I've been doing some digging of my own. I found something in the security logs — a pattern of late-night access to the house system, the alarm codes, the camera feeds. All traced to the same administrative account."