Chapter 2 - The Ghost in the Machine
The wheelchair shot forward like a guided missile.
Caleb gripped the armrests, his knuckles turning instantly white.
He desperately yanked the manual brake lever, but the heavy steel handle snapped off in his hand.
The sabotaged drive assembly had completely locked him out of the controls.
Jonah lunged forward to grab the back of the chair, but his fingers slipped off the slick leather headrest.
The chair hit the edge of the silicone-coated marble.
Just as Elise had predicted, the heavy tires lost all traction on the invisible film.
The wheelchair spun violently out of control, drifting sideways toward the top of the grand staircase.
Below lay a forty-foot drop onto jagged crystal decorations and unforgiving stone steps.
Elise did not have time to scream or call for help.
She kicked her heavy metal cleaning cart directly into the path of the speeding wheelchair.
The chair slammed into the cart with a deafening crash of buckling metal and splashing soapy water.
The violent impact threw Caleb from his seat.
He tumbled across the slippery marble, skidding to a halt just two inches from the edge of the deadly drop.
The heavy motorized wheelchair smashed through the glass banister and plummeted down the stairs, shattering into dozens of pieces at the bottom.
The foyer fell into a terrifying, breathless silence.
Jonah and his guards sprinted across the dry edges of the floor to reach their boss.
Caleb was breathing heavily, his sharp eyes fixed on the mangled remains of his chair at the bottom of the stairs.
He looked up at Elise, who was leaning against the wall, her hands trembling uncontrollably.
“You just saved my life,” Caleb whispered.
Jonah helped Caleb sit up against a marble pillar, fury radiating from the security chief’s face.
“The chair’s internal computer was hacked remotely,” Jonah growled, pulling out his secure tablet.
“Someone overrode the manual safety protocols.”
Caleb’s jaw tightened into a dangerous line.
“Find out who authorized that technician to enter my house this morning,” Caleb commanded.
Jonah furiously typed on his screen, accessing the mansion’s digital security logs.
He tapped the screen twice, waiting for the system to decrypt the entry gate data.
Jonah’s face suddenly went pale.
He slowly looked up from the tablet and stared directly at Elise.
He reached inside his jacket and drew a sleek black pistol, pointing it right at her chest.
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“The logs show the technician was cleared at the gate by an internal employee ID,” Jonah said, his voice cold as ice.
“It was your ID, Elise.”
