Chapter 5 - The Broken Microchip and a Billionaire's Dark Family Legacy
As the Land Rover ate the miles of the Taconic State Parkway through sheets of
freezing rain, my mind raced through every interaction I had shared with
Vivienne over the past year.
The subtle suggestions to put Bruno in outdoor kennels. The casual remarks about
how ‘smelly and old’ he had become. The dinner party where she ‘accidentally’
left dark chocolate truffles on the coffee table within Bruno’s reach—a disaster
averted only because Maria had swept them away in time.
I had been blind, blinded by the polished smile of a woman who cared nothing for
me, my life, or my loyalty, seeing only dollar signs attached to my family name.
My dashboard screen illuminated with an incoming encrypted file from Kane.
“Adrian, I pulled the state veterinary registry on the Rhinebeck facility,” Kane
reported through the Bluetooth speaker. “The on-site vet is Dr. Warren Hayes.
His veterinary license was suspended three years ago in New Jersey for
falsifying necropsy reports and distributing black-market sedatives to illegal
dog fighting rings.”
“Is Bruno alive?” My voice was a razor-thin wire of tension.
“Hayes’s clinic specializes in forged certificates of natural death,” Kane said
darkly. “They hold high-value animals, harvest microchips to prevent state
tracking, and administer slow-acting toxins to simulate organ failure. If they
took Bruno Thursday night, Hayes would hold him for seventy-two hours to ensure
all blood metabolites clear before issuing a fraudulent certificate of natural
cardiac arrest.”
May you like
“Seventy-two hours,” I calculated out loud. “That means he’s scheduled to be
killed at ten o'clock tonight.”
“We have less than ninety minutes,” Kane said. “Step on the gas.”
