Chapter 7 - The Ghost from Zurich
While the corporate war raged in the boardrooms, a quieter, more dangerous battle was unfolding in the shadows of the city's old medical district.
Late Friday night, a black sedan pulled up behind the St. Jude Private Clinic—the very facility in Zurich that had falsified Nomi's death certificate three years prior, and whose regional administrative branch had recently been re-established locally.
A figure wrapped in a heavy trench coat slipped through the rear delivery entrance. It wasn't an assassin, nor a spy. It was Eleanor Callaway.
The matriarch of the Ashcom family had aged a decade since the night of the gala. Her hair was starker, her steps slower, supported by a heavy ebony cane. But the guilt that consumed her would not let her sleep. She needed to know the full truth of who had paid the doctors to write her daughter-in-law off as a corpse.
"You shouldn't be here, Mrs. Callaway," a voice rasped from the dim corner of the sterile archive room.
Dr. Alistair Vance—no relation to Marcus, but a long-time corrupt medical consultant for the elite—stepped out from behind a towering stack of microfiche cabinets. He looked nervous, his fingers twitching nervously against the clipboard in his hands.
"You signed the discharge papers, Alistair," Eleanor said, her voice shaking with restrained fury. "You took three million dollars from our family trust to bury the Dwart girl quietly. But she didn't die. Someone pulled her out before the fire consumed the entire wing."
Dr. Alistair let out a bitter, dry laugh. "You think we wanted her dead, Eleanor? We were just hired help. The Swiss clinic was funded by a consortium. And the man who ordered the chart falsified wasn't an Ashcom... and he wasn't a Dwart."
Eleanor’s breath caught in her throat. "Who?"
Before Alistair could answer, the fluorescent lights above them flickered and died. A heavy, metallic thud echoed down the subterranean hallway—the sound of the security doors locking simultaneously from the outside.
"We're not alone," Alistair whispered, his face draining of color.
Heavy, deliberate footsteps approached the archive room door. The frosted glass pane illuminated as a flashlight beam swept across it.
"Run," Alistair hissed, grabbing Eleanor’s arm. But it was too late.
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The door swung open with a sharp creak. Standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the emergency red lights of the corridor, was a tall man wearing leather gloves, holding a silver-plated lighter that flickered rhythmically in the dark.
"Well, well," a smooth, chilling voice cut through the silence. "The matriarch of the Ashcoms, playing detective in the basement. Did you really think past sins stay buried just because you changed the corporate letterhead?"
