Chapter 4 - The Voice on the Line
"Give me my phone," Maxwell said.
Martha did not hesitate. She set the invoices down on the dry marble vanity, turned toward the floating brass shelf near the bath, and retrieved his encrypted satellite handset. It was a heavy, slate-black device designed for military-grade voice security, completely isolated from the estate’s commercial Wi-Fi network.
She handed it to him. His wet fingers smeared moisture across the dark glass screen as he tapped in an eight-digit administrative code.
He did not call Dr. Ross. He did not call his lawyers.
He dialed extension 001—the private security bunker located beneath the carriage house at the northern edge of the estate.
The phone rang twice. A sharp, metallic click broke the connection, followed by a crisp, gravelly voice.
"Security dispatch. Brennan speaking."
"Brennan," Maxwell said, his voice dropping into the cold, authoritative cadence he had used when commanding private military operations a decade ago. "It’s Maxwell."
There was an immediate shift on the line—the rustle of a headset being adjusted, the sudden cessation of background radio chatter. "Mr. Vance. Is everything alright, sir? Do you need a team in the main house?"
"I need an audit," Maxwell said, staring at the brass faucet. "Access the estate’s internal telecommunications server. Pull the PBX telephone logs for the last twelve months. I want every outbound call placed to the St. Jude Neurological Institute."
A brief pause hung over the line. "One moment, Mr. Vance. Accessing the primary switchboard now."
In the bath, the silence was suffocating. Martha stood perfectly still, her hands clasped tightly against her beige apron, her knuckles white. She could hear the faint, rapid clicking of mechanical keyboard switches over the phone’s earpiece.
"I have the registry, sir," Brennan reported, his tone professional and steady. "There are twenty-eight outbound calls to the St. Jude main switchboard between March of last year and last Friday. Total duration: forty-two minutes."
"Who placed them?" Maxwell demanded. "What terminal originated the connection?"
"Checking the internal routing protocols now, sir," Brennan murmured. More keystrokes echoed through the speaker. Then, the typing stopped abruptly.
The silence from the other end of the line stretched for five seconds, then ten.
"Brennan?" Maxwell growled.
"Mr. Vance," the security chief’s voice returned, but the clinical detachment had vanished, replaced by an uneasy, defensive hesitation. "The calls didn't originate from the administrative office. And they didn't come from your personal study."
"Where did they come from?"
"Every single one of those twenty-eight calls was routed through internal extension two-zero-four, sir," Brennan said quietly. "The line was patched through the second-floor guest wing."
Maxwell’s grip on the handset tightened until the hardened polymer casing creaked.
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"Verify the location of extension two-zero-four," Maxwell said, his eyes burning into the marble wall opposite the tub.
"Extension two-zero-four is hardwired into the bedside console of bedroom suite B," Brennan replied, his voice barely audible now. "The room directly across the hall from your master quarters, sir."
