Chapter 3 - The Imperfect Message
Gabriel pressed the encrypted burner phone into my right palm, curling my stiff, unresponsive fingers around the smooth plastic casing.
"Can you manage a single micro-gesture?" Gabriel asked, his eyes searching mine with desperate intensity. "Just two finger taps against the screen. I’ve pre-programmed a draft text message to your daughter’s cell phone. All you have to do is trigger the send button using your thumb."
I focused every ounce of my remaining mental energy, channeling my sheer willpower down through my shoulder, past my elbow, and into my right hand. For five months, those nerves had been dormant, dead cables refusing to carry a signal.
Move, I screamed internally. Move, damn you!
A microscopic twitch rippled through my thumb. Gabriel gasped softly, holding his breath as I forced my hand to flex. With agonizing slowness, my index and middle fingers scraped across the sleek glass display of the burner phone, tapping twice against the bright digital screen.
Tap. Tap.
The automated voice on the phone chimed softly: Message sent to Lucy Bennett.
Gabriel snatched the phone back from my palm, slipping it deep into his pocket just as the heavy front door downstairs clicked open, followed by the familiar, heavy tread of heavy boots marching up the staircase.
Alvin’s booming, arrogant voice echoed down the corridor. "Where is my favorite sister-in-law? We need to finalize the escrow documents before the bank closes!"
Dr. Mena quickly grabbed his blood pressure cuff, pasting a calm, professional mask across his face as Alvin barged uninvited into the master bedroom without even bothering to knock.
Alvin looked worse than he had five months ago. Deep, dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes, and his expensive designer suit hung loosely on a frame wasted away by constant anxiety, gambling debts, and greed. He didn't even bother to look at me as a human being; he merely glanced at my immobile body the way a greedy landlord inspects a decaying piece of rental property.
"Well, Doc?" Alvin demanded, walking over to the foot of my bed and crossing his arms. "Is our patient holding together nicely? We can't have any unexpected medical emergencies before Friday morning. Everything is riding on this estate liquidation."
Gabriel packed his medical bag with deliberate slowness. "His vitals are stable, Mr. Bennett. Though given his current neurological state, any sudden emotional shock or massive shift in medication could prove... fatal."
A cruel, knowing smirk spread across Alvin’s face. "Good. Let nature take its course. We've waited long enough for the old man to step out of the way."
Alvin turned his back on me, tossing a file folder onto the nightstand right beside the spot where Beatriz’s bribe money had sat moments earlier. "Tell Beatriz I'm downstairs in the study going over the wire transfer codes. Make sure she signs those Aspen property deeds tonight."
As Alvin swaggered out of the room, leaving the door cracked wide open, I felt a cold surge of adrenaline. The message had been sent. But across town in Boulder, would Lucy understand the cryptic warning? And more importantly, would she get here before Friday?
Meanwhile, forty miles away in a cozy student apartment near the University of Colorado Boulder campus, my daughter Lucy sat at her cluttered wooden desk, staring intently at her laptop screen as she finalized architectural drafts for her upcoming thesis presentation.
Her phone buzzed loudly against the textbook stack.
She glanced down, expecting a reminder from her landlord or a project update from a classmate. Instead, an unknown mobile number flashed across her screen with a single, chilling text message:
Daughter. Do not trust Beatriz or Alvin. They are selling Aspen and coming for everything. Look in my home office wall safe. Password is your birthday. Dad.
Lucy froze. Color drained entirely from her face, leaving her skin porcelain white. She stared at the screen, her hands trembling violently.
She knew for a fact that I was completely paralyzed, trapped in a hospital bed, and allegedly incapable of communicating a single coherent thought. For months, Beatriz had assured her that I couldn't even recognize my own reflection, let alone operate a mobile phone.
So who had sent this message?
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Was it a cruel, sick prank? Or was it the terrifying confirmation of a nightmare she had secretly suspected for months?
Without a moment's hesitation, Lucy slammed her laptop shut, grabbed her car keys off the kitchen counter, and sprinted down the stairs toward her beat-up Honda Civic. Her foot slammed hard onto the accelerator, and she sped out of the parking lot, hurtling down the highway toward Denver, unaware that she was driving straight into a nest of vipers.
