Chapter 2 - The Silent Witness
Gideon stared at the blood-stained drive in the palm of his hand.
The dark red smears were still slightly tacky to the touch.
He quickly slipped the drive into his own pocket before Norah could notice.
"Take us to the penthouse," Gideon ordered his driver, rolling up the privacy partition.
The sleek town car accelerated smoothly away from the snowy park.
Norah sat quietly in the back seat, burying her face into the soft fur of Gideon's wool coat.
Her small fingers were still fiercely gripping the stuffed rabbit with the torn ear.
"Norah, do you know what was in your pocket?" Gideon asked softly.
The little girl shook her head slowly without looking up.
"Mama just pushed it inside my coat and told me to run," she whispered.
"Did you see anyone else in the park?"
Norah squeezed her eyes shut tightly, trembling with sudden, intense fear.
"I saw the man with the silver cane," she said quietly.
Gideon felt a cold sweat break out on the back of his neck.
Victor Vance, his primary business partner at the Witmore Foundation, notoriously walked with a custom silver-headed cane.
Victor had been pressing Gideon for months to approve a massive, unvetted international shipping contract.
Gideon had repeatedly refused, sensing something deeply unethical about the logistics company Victor wanted to use.
"Did the man with the cane hurt your mama?" Gideon pressed gently.
"He told his friends to put her in the black van," Norah cried softly.
Gideon pulled out his encrypted phone and dialed his head of private security.
Marcus was a former special forces operative who owed his life to Gideon's medical foundation.
"Marcus, I need you to run a city-wide hospital check for an unidentified female trauma victim," Gideon commanded.
"Sir, are you in some kind of trouble?" Marcus asked with immediate professional alarm.
"I found a little girl, and her mother was abducted tonight," Gideon explained quickly.
He gave Marcus the few details they had, stressing the absolute urgency of the situation.
Ten minutes later, the town car pulled into the heavily fortified underground garage of Gideon's high-rise building.
He carried the exhausted child up the private elevator to his secure penthouse.
He instructed his housekeeper to draw a warm bath and make the little girl some hot soup.
While Norah was being cared for, Gideon walked into his private study and locked the heavy oak doors.
He plugged the bloody flash drive into his offline, heavily encrypted server.
A massive password prompt immediately flashed onto the large monitor.
Before he could attempt to bypass it, his phone buzzed violently on the mahogany desk.
It was Marcus calling back much faster than anticipated.
"I found a Jane Doe matching the description admitted to St. Jude's intensive care unit twenty minutes ago," Marcus reported.
"Is she alive?" Gideon asked, holding his breath.
"Barely breathing and currently in a deep coma from severe blunt force trauma," Marcus replied grimly.
"I want a full security detail on her room immediately," Gideon ordered.
"That might be a problem, boss," Marcus said, his voice dropping to a tense whisper.
May you like
"Why is that a problem?"
"Because I'm standing outside her ICU room right now, and someone just walked in holding a syringe who definitely doesn't work for the hospital."
