Chapter 2 - THE MAN OUTSIDE
The man outside was not Daniel.
Vanessa realized that the moment the door burst inward.
Spa director Michael Trent came through first.
Behind him were two security officers and a paramedic from the medical clinic attached to the rehabilitation center.
Michael looked at the flooded control panel.
Then at the locked pod.
Then at Vanessa.
“What did you do?”
Vanessa backed away.
“Nothing.”
Michael ran to the manual release.
It did not respond.
“Get maintenance!”
One guard grabbed a fire-safety tool from the wall cabinet.
Vanessa suddenly moved toward the exit.
The second guard blocked her.
“Stay here.”
“I need my husband.”
“You need to stay here.”
Inside the pod, Evelyn’s eyes opened fully.
Michael saw her.
“She’s conscious!”
The heat was still climbing.
The guard forced the emergency housing open.
Another employee cut power at the room breaker.
The pod went dark.
It took fifty-two seconds to release the lid.
To Evelyn, it felt like an hour.
When the acrylic finally lifted, cold air hit her face.
She gasped.
Michael and the paramedic helped her sit up slowly.
Her skin was flushed.
Her breathing ragged.
But she was alive.
Vanessa stared at her.
Not relieved.
Horrified.
Evelyn looked directly at her.
“You should have checked the watch.”
Vanessa’s face changed.
“What?”
Then Evelyn’s smartwatch spoke.
A recorded voice from its tiny speaker:
I OWE TWO POINT EIGHT MILLION!
Vanessa went white.
Michael looked at her.
The security guards looked at her.
The paramedic stopped moving for half a second.
Evelyn raised her wrist.
“I sent the whole thing.”
Vanessa lunged.
One guard caught her.
“To who?!”
Evelyn leaned back against the treatment bed.
Her eyes were tired.
But calm.
“To the people who were already looking for the money.”
That was when Vanessa began screaming.
Not because she had been caught trying to hurt Evelyn.
Because she understood the other thing she had confessed.
The number.
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The $2.8 million.
The money no one outside the family was supposed to know existed.
