THE CHRISTMAS WITNESS

I stood frozen in the sterile hospital room, the hum of the heart monitor the only sound bridging the gap between my past and my present.

Juniper died because of me. Because she took a sip from a glass meant for her father.

My knees felt hollow. For three years, I had blamed the universe. I had blamed God. Now, the truth was an entirely different kind of hell.

“I figured it out immediately,” Elise wept, her hands covering her face. “When she collapsed, I saw the empty glass. I knew Marcus was working for Sterling. I knew if I told the police, Sterling would kill me and frame me for the murder. So I ran. I stole the medical files to prove the poison was synthetic, and I hid.”

I looked down at Marcus. He was bleeding out on the linoleum, his eyes rolling back.

He didn’t deserve a clean death. But I needed him alive long enough to testify.

“Malcolm,” I commanded, my voice devoid of emotion. “Get a medic in here for him. Cuff him to the bed. And get a wheelchair for Elise. We are leaving.”

Elise looked up in panic. “We can’t go back to your penthouse, Gideon. Sterling knows you have Norah. He knows about the rabbit.”

I stopped. “What about the rabbit?”

“The watch wasn’t the only thing I hid inside it,” Elise said frantically as she swung her bruised legs over the side of the bed. “Before the crash, I told Norah to take off her left shoe and put what was inside it into the rabbit’s other ear.”

“What was in her shoe?”

Before Elise could answer, the lights in the hospital corridor flickered, then shut off completely. Emergency red backup lights bathed the room in a bloody glow.

Heavy, synchronized footsteps echoed down the hall.

Sterling’s men. They had cut the power.

“Boss,” Malcolm said, peering into the corridor. “We have at least a dozen heavily armed men blocking the stairwells. They aren’t local cops.”

They were private military. Sterling’s personal hit squad.

“They aren’t here to kill us,” Elise whispered, terrified. “Sterling needs me alive. He needs Norah.”

“Why?” I demanded, handing Elise a spare magazine for her revolver.

“Because three years ago, I didn’t just steal the toxicology report,” Elise said, her eyes locked on mine. “I stole Sterling’s physical ledger. The black book documenting every illegal political assassination he ever funded. He can’t become Governor without it. And he can’t find it without Norah.”

The revelation hit me like a freight train.

My father-in-law was willing to burn down a hospital, execute a child, and destroy his own family for power.

“We go down through the laundry chute,” I ordered, grabbing Elise’s arm and supporting her weight. “It drops to the basement loading dock. My armored car is parked out back.”

We moved fast. Malcolm took the lead, suppressed fire taking down two of Sterling’s point men before they even saw us.

We forced the laundry chute open. I dropped Elise first, then followed. We landed hard in a pile of medical linens in the freezing, cavernous basement.

I kicked the laundry room door open, leading us out into the massive underground parking garage.

We were thirty feet from my SUV.