Too Late, Mr. Winters: I'm No Victim

The back of the Lincoln was silent and cold. Rose sat opposite Ellery's wheelchair, which was locked into place where a section of seating had been removed. She stared out the window, ignoring Victoria and Claudine, who were chattering in the seat beside her.

Arla sat in the back of a beat-up Toyota Camry, the Uber driver humming along to the radio. Her phone was connected to a small, discreet earpiece.

"Hey, Auditor," a distorted voice came through. Chloe.

"Hey," Arla said quietly. "I'm heading to the zoo."

"The Winters estate?" Chloe laughed. "Brave. I'm tracking the convoy's GPS. Looks like a presidential motorcade."

Arla watched the black SUVs in the distance. "My fiancé has trust issues."

"Want me to scramble their comms?"

"No. Let them watch."

Inside the limo, Ellery's eyes were closed, his breathing shallow. He appeared to be asleep. But he was listening. A high-frequency receiver, disguised as a medical sensor on his wrist, was picking up fragments of cellular traffic. He couldn't hear the words, but he registered the encrypted signal originating from a burner phone on the same route.

His fingers twitched on the armrest of his chair.

He had underestimated her. He'd thought she was just a brilliant accountant he'd picked up, a beautiful anomaly. He never suspected she was a ghost, capable of operating in the shadows he himself inhabited.

He had to revise his entire strategy. The merger with the Fitzgeralds was meant to be a simple, if distasteful, corporate takeover. But Arla... Arla was not a line item on a balance sheet. She was a black swan event.

Silas, sitting in the front passenger seat, glanced in the rearview mirror. He caught the subtle tension in Ellery's jaw.

"Sir?" Silas murmured into his collar mic, a frequency only Ellery's earpiece could receive.

"Dig deeper on Arla," Ellery's voice, clear and cold, came back through the hidden comms. "Not Woods. Fitzgerald. Cross-reference with any sealed juvenile records in her home county. She's not just a black sheep. She's hiding something big."

"I'm trying, sir," Silas's voice was strained. "Her digital footprint is... weirdly clean. Almost too clean."

Ellery's eyes remained closed. "Exactly."