Chapter 1 - Forty-Five Floors Above Chicago
I drove my hands into the stranger’s chest and shouted, “Sir, can you hear me?”
Security Chief Martin Hale dropped beside the open red AED case and stared at the silver watch lying near the man’s hand.
Three letters were engraved beneath the cracked crystal.
A.B.W.
Martin looked at me and whispered, “That’s Adrian Blackwood.”
This was no ordinary medical emergency.
At 11:47 p.m., none of that mattered to me.
I didn’t care whether the unconscious man beneath my hands owned a corporation, a grocery store, or nothing at all.
He wasn’t breathing properly.
That was the only fact that mattered.
“One, two, three, four…”
I counted compressions through clenched teeth.
The marble beneath my knees felt like ice.
His white dress shirt had been pulled open. His black jacket lay twisted beneath one shoulder. A dark tattoo disappeared beneath the fabric near his ribs, and another wrapped around his left forearm.
He looked too young to be dying.
Maybe forty.
Maybe younger.
His skin had gone frighteningly pale.
“Ambulance is coming,” Martin said.
“How long?”
“Seven minutes.”
“Too long.”
My voice broke.
Martin looked at me.
I had no medical degree. I wasn’t a nurse. I wasn’t even one of the executives who belonged on the forty-fifth floor.
I was Claire Bennett, twenty-nine years old, senior financial analyst in a department nobody important ever visited unless budgets were being cut.
I knew CPR because my father had survived a cardiac arrest when I was sixteen.
The paramedic who saved him had later taught my whole family what to do if it happened again.
My father died eight years later from cancer.
But I never forgot the rhythm.
Hard.
Fast.
Don’t stop.
“Come on,” I whispered.
Adrian Blackwood’s body moved beneath each compression.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered whether I was cracking his ribs.
Then I remembered the instructor’s words.
Broken ribs heal.
Dead hearts don’t.
“Claire.”
I barely heard Martin.
“Claire, the AED.”
He had opened the red case.
I stopped compressions only long enough for us to attach the pads.
The machine analyzed.
NO SHOCK ADVISED.
My stomach dropped.
“Keep going,” Martin said.
I did.
My shoulders burned.
My wrists hurt.
My hair had fallen across my face.
I could hear sirens far below, but forty-five floors suddenly felt like forty-five miles.
“Please,” I whispered. “Please don’t die.”
Then Adrian coughed.
It was weak.
Barely a sound.
But it was there.
I froze.
“Roll him,” Martin ordered.
We carefully turned him onto his side.
Adrian sucked in a ragged breath.
Another followed.
I almost collapsed beside him.
“Oh my God.”
His eyelids fluttered.
For less than a second, his dark eyes found mine.
There was confusion in them.
Pain.
And something that looked almost like fear.
His lips moved.
I leaned closer.
“What?”
He whispered one word.
“Coffee.”
Then his eyes closed again.
The elevator chimed behind us.
Paramedics rushed out.
Everything became movement.
Questions.
Equipment.
Commands.
One medic took Adrian’s pulse while another fitted an oxygen mask over his face.
“What happened?”
“I found him inside the elevator,” I said.
“Was he conscious?”
“No.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know. Maybe thirty seconds before I started CPR.”
“Any medical history?”
Martin answered.
“None on file.”
The medic looked at me.
“You started compressions immediately?”
“Yes.”
“You probably bought him those seven minutes.”
I stared at Adrian as they lifted him onto a stretcher.
Bought him seven minutes.
Seven minutes sounded insignificant.
Until they were the difference between life and death.
As the paramedics rolled him toward the service elevator, one of them glanced at the stains on my yellow jumpsuit.
“You should get checked out too.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
Only then did I notice.
My hands were trembling violently.
Martin put his jacket around my shoulders.
“You’re in shock.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I said I’m fine.”
He didn’t argue.
The elevator doors closed behind Adrian.
Silence returned.
But it wasn’t the same silence.
Martin stared at me.
“You really didn’t know who he was?”
I shook my head.
I had seen Adrian Blackwood in annual reports and company videos, but those photographs showed a polished billionaire in a tailored suit surrounded by board members.
The man on the floor had looked human.
Vulnerable.
Terrified.
“Why was he here this late?” I asked.
Martin hesitated.
“He does that sometimes.”
“Walk around empty offices at midnight?”
“He owns them.”
Fair point.
I looked down.
Something silver lay near the elevator track.
His watch.
The cracked one.
I picked it up.
Martin reached for it, then stopped.
On the marble beside the watch was a small paper cup.
Blackwood Tower Café.
The lid was gone.
Brown liquid had spilled across the floor.
Coffee.
Adrian’s last word.
“Did he buy this downstairs?” I asked.
“The lobby café closes at eight.”
I looked at Martin.
“What?”
He crouched.
“That cup shouldn’t be here.”
A chill moved through me that had nothing to do with Chicago winter.
“Maybe he brought it earlier.”
“Maybe.”
Martin didn’t sound convinced.
I turned toward the security camera above the elevator.
“Then you can check.”
His expression changed.
Not much.
Just enough.
“What?”
Martin stood slowly.
“That camera went offline at eleven thirty-two.”
I stared at him.
“What about the hallway cameras?”
“Same network.”
“All of them?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Then he nodded.
For fifteen minutes before I found the owner of Blackwood Industries unconscious inside his own elevator, every camera on the executive floor had stopped recording.
My phone buzzed.
I expected a message from my roommate asking when I was coming home.
Instead, the screen displayed an unknown number.
The message contained only six words.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LET HIM DIE.
I stopped breathing.
Martin saw my face.
“What is it?”
I showed him.
His jaw tightened.
“Don’t delete that.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
Another message arrived.
THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING.
Martin reached for his radio.
Then the elevator behind us opened.
A woman stepped out.
Tall.
Perfectly dressed.
Silver coat.
Dark hair pulled into a sleek knot.
I recognized her immediately.
Vanessa Cross.
Chief Operating Officer of Blackwood Industries.
The second most powerful person in the company.
She looked at the spilled coffee.
Then at Adrian’s broken watch in my hand.
Then at me.
And for one brief second, all the color disappeared from her face.
“Where is Adrian?” she demanded.
“Northwestern Memorial,” Martin said.
Vanessa’s eyes returned to me.
“You found him?”
“Yes.”
“Was he conscious?”
“Only for a second.”
Her expression sharpened.
“Did he say anything?”
I remembered the word.
Coffee.
Something inside me told me not to answer.
“No.”
Vanessa stared at me for three long seconds.
Then she smiled.
It wasn’t relief.
It wasn’t gratitude.
It was calculation.
“I’m sure this has been very traumatic for you, Ms. Bennett.”
She knew my name.
I had never met her.
Before I could ask how, Martin’s radio crackled.
A security dispatcher spoke from the other end.
“Hale, we recovered part of the camera feed.”
Martin grabbed the radio.
“What did you find?”
A pause.
Then:
“There was someone inside the elevator with Mr. Blackwood before the system went dark.”
Vanessa stopped moving.
Martin looked toward the security office.
“Can you identify them?”
Another pause.
“We think so.”
The elevator doors began closing behind Vanessa.
May you like
The dispatcher spoke one final sentence.
“And Claire… you’re going to want to see who it was.”
