Page 62 of Cause of Doubt
“You don’t have to worry about Parker, Simon.”
“I know. I was just saying that he deserves to be happy. And from what I just saw, he’s over the moon that you’re back. Anyway, there’s something else.”
“What?” My brows furrowed.
“My FBI friend, Roman, said they recovered hundreds of files on patients there. They weren’t a mental health facility, Paige. But I think you already knew that.”
“I did.”
“Here’s the interesting part,” he said. “The bureau was ordered to shut the investigation down immediately. The agents were ordered to collect the files, file them under national security, and forget the entire operation ever existed. They were told that if they couldn’t do that, there would be consequences.”
“They buried it?” My brows furrowed.
“Yep.” He nodded. “Every file, every record, and every witness. So officially, that place never existed.”
“Who gave the order, Simon?” My jaw clenched.
“It came from very high up. That place was never supposed to be found.”
“Does your friend, Roman, know who gave the orders?” I asked.
“No. He said it’s classified and a matter of national security.”
“We’ll see.” I grabbed my phone and dialed Gabriel.
“It’s about time, Paige.”
“Gabriel, you’re on speaker. Detective Simon Kind is here. He said that the FBI was told to bury everything regarding the facility up in Big Sur.”
“That’s why I needed you to call me ASAP,” he said. “The report that was filed listed the facility as an old, abandoned research center that hadn’t been in use in decades. There’s something else, Paige. You might want to take me off speaker.”
“It’s fine, Gabriel. Just say it.”
“You know how I couldn’t hack Hearthstone’s financial records because it was heavily encrypted and the coding changed every fifteen minutes?”
“Yeah. You’d been trying for months,” I said.
“Well, I created a code that mirrors their internal accounting system, but with a hidden backdoor. I have everything, Paige. And I now know who the snake at the very top is. He’s known as the shadow director because only a very small group of people know who he is. He’s been hiding in plain sight all this time.”
“Give me his name, Gabriel,” I said.
“If you’re not sitting down, maybe you should,” he said.
My brows furrowed as I looked at Simon.
“Name, Gabriel.”
“Howard Greenfield, aka Gerald Trench.”
“Trench? How do I know that name?”
“Does Uncle Jerry ring a bell?” Gabriel asked.
“He was my father’s best friend since they were kids. He was an art collector.”
“Paige, I don’t think that accident you and your parents were in was an accident. I think Uncle Jerry had that accident arranged.”
“Where is he, Gabriel?”
