Chapter 9 - The Lawyer’s Bargain
Emergency lights flooded the corridor in red.
Agent Shaw ordered Alexander to the floor.
He obeyed.
“I did not move Noah,” he said.
Daniel struck him before the tactical officers could intervene.
“You brought us here.”
“Because Helena asked me to.”
Helena aimed her pistol at Alexander.
“I asked you to help extract the children. I did not ask you to make arrangements with Margaret.”
Alexander’s silence confirmed enough.
Claire stood over him.
“What did you do?”
The attorney removed a small data device from inside his sleeve and placed it on the floor.
“Margaret contacted me after Lily was born. She knew the Bennett claim would activate. She offered evidence against the Vale Society in exchange for protection.”
“You agreed?”
“I pretended to agree.”
“What did she request?”
“A new identity and access to Noah.”
Daniel tried to reach him again, but Agent Shaw held him back.
“Why would she want Noah?” Claire asked.
“Because the trust recognizes him as the eldest living child of Claire and Daniel. Under one interpretation, he could outrank Claire as beneficiary when he turns eighteen.”
“He is four.”
“Which gives anyone controlling him fourteen years to restructure the assets.”
Claire felt sick.
To Margaret, Noah was not a grandson.
He was a financial instrument.
“Where was he taken?”
Alexander looked toward Helena.
“To the last place the Vale Society would search.”
Helena lowered her weapon slightly.
“You did not.”
“I had no alternative.”
“Where?” Claire demanded.
Alexander answered.
“Hawthorne Mansion.”
For several seconds nobody spoke.
The house they had just left.
The house where Oliver and Lily remained under protection.
Alexander explained that Meridian House had been compromised weeks earlier. He arranged for a nurse to remove Noah during a medical transfer and bring him through an old service tunnel beneath the mansion.
“The tunnel opens below the western greenhouse,” he said. “Elias Venn was supposed to deliver the location to Claire.”
“The dead courier.”
“Yes.”
Claire remembered the body in the greenhouse.
“Was Noah there while we were standing outside?”
“He was below the property.”
Daniel grabbed Alexander’s coat.
“Why did you not tell us?”
“Because I did not know who inside the mansion could be trusted.”
Agent Shaw attempted to contact the protection team.
No response.
She tried a second frequency.
Nothing.
Helena moved toward the exit.
“The mansion’s communications can be isolated from a control station on this island.”
They raced to the main operations room.
Inside, monitors showed live images of Hawthorne Mansion.
The ballroom was empty.
Richard sat alone in the library.
Vanessa was being transported back through the front entrance by two people wearing federal jackets.
The officers protecting Lily and Oliver lay unconscious near the nursery.
Claire searched the screens.
“Where are my children?”
One monitor changed.
Margaret appeared inside the mansion’s underground tunnel.
She held Lily.
A masked nurse carried Oliver.
Behind them walked a small boy in gray clothing.
Noah.
Claire touched the screen.
He was alive.
Thin and frightened, but alive.
Margaret looked directly into the camera.
“You wanted your children,” she said. “Come home and collect them.”
The feed cut to black.
Agent Shaw ordered the team back to the boats.
Helena remained beside the control console.
“There is another problem.”
On a separate monitor, a timer counted down from fifty-two minutes.
“What happens at zero?” Daniel asked.
“The island records are destroyed.”
“By fire?”
Helena shook her head.
“By flooding.”
Thousands of documents, genetic records, and identities would vanish.
Agent Shaw had to divide the team.
Two officers remained to secure the evidence and stop the destruction system.
The others returned toward the dock with Claire.
Alexander handed her the data device.
“This contains the partial heir registry.”
“Partial?”
“The complete registry was inside Helena’s envelope.”
The envelope Margaret or her agents had stolen.
As Claire stepped into the tunnel, a monitor flickered back to life.
Richard appeared on the screen.
He was no longer in the library.
He was kneeling inside a stone room.
Someone stood behind him with a gun.
The person wore a divided crown ring.
Richard looked into the camera.
“Claire, do not come back.”
The gunman pressed the weapon against his head.
May you like
Richard closed his eyes.
“Margaret is not the one controlling the house.”
