Chapter 7 - Friday Night in Uptown
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"Look at this," Julian said, pulling himself out of the memory with ruthless discipline and opening the laptop on the table.
Nora stepped closer, looking over his shoulder at the screen. Displayed on the monitor was an audio waveform alongside an architectural blueprint of the east wing.
"The recording left on the Bentley hood this morning was only twelve seconds long," Julian explained, tapping a key.
From the laptop speakers came the unmistakable hiss of steam pipes, followed by Julian’s own fractured voice from the night before: "Being that monster... I can't do it anymore... Let me stay down here tonight. I need you."
Nora felt a chill run down her spine, hearing those raw words played back as weapons.
"There was a text file attached to the audio," Julian continued, clicking open a second window. "Step down from the Chicago Port Authority bids by Monday morning, or the Commission hears how the head of the Vane family cries in his maid’s apron."
"Who in the house had access to the east wing heating ducts?" Nora asked, her mind automatically shifting into problem-solving mode.
"The linen sitting room shares a vertical chase with only two rooms directly above it on the second floor," Julian said, pointing to the blueprint. "The east guest bathroom, which was empty, and the housekeeper’s private office."
"Mrs. Gable?" Nora breathed. "No—she was furious at me twenty minutes ago because she genuinely believed I was sleeping with you! If she had recorded us through the vent, she would already know nothing physical happened in that pantry!"
Julian turned his head, looking up at her from the chair. "Which means someone was inside Gable’s office at two-thirty in the morning without her knowing. Who has a duplicate key to the housekeeper’s office?"
"Only you, Mr. Dario, and the head of night security—Marcus," Nora answered instantly. "Wait. Elena—the laundry girl who accused me in the kitchen this morning! She’s dating Marcus!"
Julian’s storm-gray eyes darkened into flint. "Elena didn't wake up at two-thirty to use the washroom. She was the lookout while Marcus planted the mic in the vent and lifted your badge."
He snapped the laptop shut and picked up his encrypted phone, sending a brief, lethal text message to Dario.
Then he picked up the heavy leather briefcase he had brought in earlier and set it in front of Nora. "What day is tomorrow?"
Nora blinked, thrown by the sudden change of subject. "Friday."
"And what do you do at five o’clock on Friday afternoons?"
"I take the bus to the train station and go home to my brother in Uptown," she said carefully, her heart skipping a beat. "Mr. Vane, please—Leo expects me every Friday at six-thirty. If I don't walk through that door with groceries, he’ll panic and think something happened to me."
"I'm not keeping you from your brother, Nora," Julian said softly. He popped the brass latches on the briefcase. Inside were three encrypted satellite trackers, two burner phones, and a thick manila folder stamped with the crest of Northwestern Memorial Hospital. "Open the folder."
With trembling fingers, Nora lifted the cover.
Inside was a confirmed surgical admission order for Leo Brennan—moving him from the outpatient dialysis clinic into a private sixth-floor suite at Northwestern Memorial starting Saturday morning, under the care of the chief of pediatric nephrology, with a live-donor match screening already funded and expedited.
Nora’s vision blurred with sudden, hot tears. She gripped the edge of the table so hard her knuckles whitened. "How... how did you do this? The waiting list was eleven months!"
"You forget who I am when the sun is up, Nora," Julian murmured, standing up beside her. "I sit on the hospital’s endowment board. One phone call at nine this morning moved him to the top of the private registry."
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A tear spilled over her lashes, landing on the hospital letterhead. "I can never pay you back for this."
"You already did at two o’clock this morning," Julian said quietly. He reached out and caught a second tear with the pad of his thumb, his touch sending a shiver straight through her chest. "And tomorrow evening, you aren't taking the bus to Uptown. I’m driving you myself."
