Chapter 37 She was living proof of that!
“Done.” The soft, bored female voice broke the silence just ten seconds later.
Dandara choked. She was so surprised that the grape slipped out of her mouth, falling pathetically into her hand.
She jumped up and ran to check.
The computer screen, previously filled with flashing windows and error codes, was now clean, blue, and perfectly organized. The cursor moved freely, obediently.
The “indestructible virus” had been wiped out as if it had never existed.
Next to her, Octavio stood paralyzed, his mouth open. He shook his head in disbelief and slowly began to clap.
“Wow... Katherine, you're amazing! I knew you were full of surprises, but I didn't expect you to know how to fix computers at this level.”
“You can go now,” she said, her tone calm, like someone dismissing an employee.
Dandara held the computer against her chest, trembling. The disbelief in her eyes quickly turned to humiliating rage.
“Why should I leave?” she shouted, her voice shrill. “This house isn't yours! I have much more right to be here than you do! You're nothing but a parasite living off my cousin!”
“Dandara!” Octavio's voice thundered, cutting off her hysterical attack. “Is that any way to talk to people? Where are your manners?” He gave her no chance to reply. He grabbed his cousin's arm firmly. “Come on. You're coming to my house now.”
“No!” Dandara resisted, planting her feet firmly on the ground.
“I'm going to wait for João Pedro here!”
“Didn't you say you wanted to talk to me at lunch?” Octavio pulled her impatiently. “Come on, it's almost dinner time and I'm starving.”
“But... what about her?” Dandara looked back with a pout of false compassion, trying to change tactics. “Are we going to leave her alone?”
“She already had dinner. And didn't you say you hate her? Why this sudden concern?” Octavio rolled his eyes.
“I'm not worried about her!” hissed Dandara, lowering her voice to a venomous whisper. “I'm just worried that she'll hang around João's room and steal his things while he's not there.”
“That's enough, Dandara. Come on.”
Their voices grew fainter and fainter, muffled by the thick walls of the mansion, until they disappeared completely.
Silence reigned.
Katherine didn't waste a second, turning and entering João Pedro's bathroom.
Her movements were precise, following the tactile memory of her previous investigation. She knelt and felt around the base of the hot tub.
There.
Her fingers found the discreet protrusion in the grout. She pressed it and turned it clockwise, and a muffled sound of a hydraulic mechanism echoed. A section of the tiled wall slid silently to the side, revealing a dark staircase leading down to a basement.
Without hesitation, Katherine entered the passageway, having already removed her hearing aid. Her keen, sensitive hearing picked up the absolute silence below, and motion-sensor lights automatically turned on as she descended, illuminating a sterile, technological corridor.
Suddenly, the smart ring on her finger vibrated. An alert.
She stopped.
Less than a meter ahead, there was an invisible line. A state-of-the-art facial recognition device guarded the main entrance to the laboratory. If she took another step without being registered in the system, the alarm would go off, locking the place and alerting João Pedro wherever he was.
Katherine remained motionless, her calm eyes scanning the perimeter, looking for a physical flaw. There was none.
João Pedro was meticulous. The security was military grade. Trying to hack the panel right there would take too long and the risk of exposure was too high. But retreat now? That would alert João that someone had discovered the secret entrance. The element of surprise would be lost forever.
She needed to get in. Now.
Katherine made a bold decision, and with her left hand, she activated a command on her modified watch. — Delete.
In an instant, the software she had implanted in the street's electrical network executed the order, and the hum of electricity died. The mansion was plunged into total darkness.
The facial recognition system flashed and shut down, restarting its emergency protocols, which would give her a thirty-second window.
In the darkness, Katherine gently turned the silver ring on her finger. The three tiny diamonds embedded in it lit up, emitting a powerful beam of white light that cut through the pitch black.
She moved forward.
Upon reaching the lower floor, the beam of light revealed a large, cold space.
The first thing that caught her attention was an entire wall covered with photos, red lines, and documents. It looked like the board of an obsessive detective.
She brought the light closer, and in the center of it all was a photo of a woman: Emma Arbex.
Katherine frowned immediately.
Surrounding Emma's photo were profiles of doctors, scientists, and autopsy reports. The conclusion was obvious: João Pedro did not believe the official version. He was investigating the cause of his aunt's death.
Could it be that Emma did not die of illness? Katherine wondered.
She shone the light over the other documents, and João had tracked down almost everyone Emma had worked with before she died. But the red lines ended in dead ends. There was no substantial progress.
And, following the chronology of events, his investigation seemed to be dangerously close to a specific project...
Katherine stopped and looked away, as this had nothing to do with her. And it didn't matter if Emma Arbex had died of illness or been murdered. She was gone. For someone who had dedicated her life to such cruel and unethical experiments, perhaps that end was not a tragedy, but a reckoning of fate.
Katherine pushed away the coldness of these thoughts and began to look for what really interested her: the drug data.
The laboratory was modern, almost paperless. She searched the drawers and benches with impressive speed, memorizing positions so she could leave everything exactly as she found it.
But without electricity, the computers were useless black boxes. She wouldn't be able to access the digital files today.
Suddenly, her hearing picked up a sound coming from far above. Tires crushing wet gravel. And a muffled voice.
“Good evening, Mr. João,” the security guard greeted him.
Katherine cursed mentally, and wanted to stay longer, but the risk was unacceptable, and with the agility of a shadow, she climbed the stairs, exited through the secret passage, and activated the locking mechanism seconds before the house's emergency lights came on.
In a matter of minutes, Katherine was in her room, lying on her bed, her breathing controlled, and the voices of João Pedro and Marcus echoed in the hallway. As she had not yet put in her hearing aid, the sound reached her ears with crystal clarity, despite the distance.
“Sir,” Marcus said, his voice low and serious. “It's been three years since Tiago and Elisa appeared on the radar. My sources say there will be a big event happening in the Capital soon. They may be involved.”
Tiago and Elisa.