Chapter 2 - The Shadow of Raymond Cross
At 8:15 a.m. the following morning, the storm had passed, leaving behind a cold, gray fog that hung low over the Chicago skyline.
In the private lounge on the seventh floor of St. Jude, Victoria Mercer sat on a plush velvet sofa, nursing a porcelain cup of black coffee. She wore a tailored charcoal wool suit, diamond stud earrings, and oversized sunglasses that masked her eyes.
Sitting across from her was Raymond Cross.
Raymond was thirty-eight, broad-shouldered, with slicked-back dark hair and the predatory posture of a former hedge-fund manager who had lost his trading license to an SEC insider investigation three years ago. He was wearing an Italian silk tie and checking an encrypted messaging app on his gold-cased phone.
"How is the old man looking?" Raymond asked softly, not looking up from his screen.
"Like a corpse that forgot to stop breathing," Victoria replied, her voice cool and detached. "The head of cardiology did his rounds at seven. Jonathan's ejection fraction is down to twelve percent. His kidneys are shutting down. He won't survive the night."
Raymond let out a quiet, satisfied breath. "And the paperwork? Vance hasn't tried to pull any last-minute maneuvers?"
"Marcus Vance is eighty-one years old and retired in Florida half the year," Victoria sneered, taking a delicate sip of coffee. "He hasn't touched the primary estate file since 2022. I spoke to him on the phone yesterday. He offered his condolences and asked if I needed help arranging the funeral home in Naperville. The fool has no idea."
"Good," Raymond said, slipping his phone into his breast pocket. "The buyers for the Milwaukee plant are growing impatient. The private equity firm in Frankfurt offered sixty cents on the dollar for the commercial real estate alone. That’s nearly thirty million in liquid cash within forty-eight hours of probate clearance."
"Patience, Raymond," Victoria chided gently, though her eyes glinted with avarice. "We have to let the body cool before we start selling off the machinery. I want the estate liquidation completed by the end of the month. After that, we clear out the Naperville house and move the primary accounts to the Caymans."
"And the orderly?" Raymond asked, his eyes narrowing slightly. "The kid on the eighth floor."
Victoria paused, her cup hovering near her lips. "What about him?"
"I was coming up the service elevator at midnight," Raymond said, leaning forward, his voice dropping an octave. "I saw him coming out of Jonathan's room carrying a sealed legal envelope. He looked jumpy."
Victoria laughed softly—a dry, brittle sound. "Lucas Bennett? Raymond, the boy is a scrub who washes bedpans for twenty dollars an hour. His sister is dying of a hole in her heart three floors down. He was probably sneaking in to beg Jonathan for a charity donation before the old man croaks. Jonathan probably gave him a hundred-dollar bill and a lecture on hard work."
"Make sure he doesn't get in the way, Victoria," Raymond warned. "We’ve spent fourteen months establishing the digitalis dosage. The toxicology report needs to look like a standard systemic failure secondary to age-related heart disease. If anyone starts asking questions—"
"No one is asking questions," Victoria interrupted sharply. "The floor doctor is a timid little man who trusts my every word. I've been the dutiful, grieving wife for four straight weeks. I brought him his soup, I sat by his bed, I cried in the hallway. By tomorrow morning, I will be the wealthiest widow in Illinois."
She stood up, smoothing the front of her skirt. "I'm going back up to the room. I want to be sitting right beside him when the heart monitor goes flat. It looks better for the obituaries."
"I'll be waiting in the parking garage," Raymond said, rising from his chair. "Call me the second the doctor pronounces time of death."
May you like
Victoria nodded, stepping out of the lounge and heading toward the bank of private elevators. As the polished steel doors closed around her, she caught her reflection in the mirrored wall. She touched her hair, adjusted her collar, and forced her face into a look of quiet, tragic exhaustion.
She didn't notice Lucas Bennett standing in the shadow of the alcove near the stairwell, holding a stack of clean linens, watching her every move with eyes like flint.
