Chapter 7 - The Empty Bedroom
Grace screamed Lily’s name through the entire second floor.
Nathan searched every room.
Closets.
Bathrooms.
Guest rooms.
The attic staircase.
Security sealed the gates.
No vehicle had entered or left for forty minutes.
Nathan’s security director, Daniel Price, arrived within fifteen minutes.
He reviewed the camera feeds.
“Nothing.”
Nathan stared at him.
“A four-year-old child does not disappear from a locked estate.”
“I agree.”
“Then find her.”
Grace was shaking violently.
Nathan put his jacket around her shoulders.
She pushed it away.
“Don’t.”
“Grace.”
“Find Lily.”
“I will.”
“No. You don’t get to say that like a promise.”
Nathan absorbed the anger.
Grace pointed toward the staircase.
“She was safe before I brought her here.”
Nathan said quietly, “You’re right.”
Grace broke.
“I came here because I thought the truth would protect her.”
Nathan stepped closer.
“Grace.”
“I was wrong.”
A soft sound came from the hallway.
Everyone froze.
Another sound.
A child coughing.
Grace turned.
“Lily?”
The sound came from behind the linen closet.
Daniel Price pulled open the door.
Nothing.
Then he noticed a narrow service panel in the wall.
Old mansions often had maintenance passages.
He opened it.
Lily was crouched inside the dark space.
Grace dropped to her knees.
“Lily!”
The child crawled forward and threw herself into Grace’s arms.
Nathan closed his eyes in relief.
Grace checked her face.
Her arms.
Her legs.
“Are you hurt?”
Lily shook her head.
“Why were you in there?”
“The lady told me to hide.”
Nathan became still.
“What lady?”
Lily looked at him.
“The pretty lady.”
Grace whispered, “Victoria?”
Lily nodded.
Nathan’s face changed.
“What did she say?”
“She said we were playing a game.”
Grace held her tighter.
“What game?”
“She said if I stayed very quiet, Aunt Grace would get a surprise.”
Nathan looked at Daniel Price.
“Where is Victoria?”
Daniel checked his phone.
“According to the gate log, she left twenty minutes ago.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened.
Lily reached into her pocket.
“She gave me this.”
It was a small silver key.
Nathan recognized it.
It opened his late father’s office.
A room at the opposite end of the second floor that had been locked for years.
Nathan took the key.
“Why did she give you this?”
Lily shrugged.
“She said hide it.”
Grace looked at Nathan.
Victoria would never give Lily something important voluntarily.
Unless she needed to move it away from herself.
Nathan walked immediately toward his father’s office.
The key turned.
Dust covered the furniture.
Old books lined the walls.
Daniel Price searched the room.
Nothing looked disturbed.
Then Grace noticed a clean rectangle on one shelf.
Something had recently been removed.
Nathan checked behind the books.
A black storage box sat against the wall.
Inside were old company backup drives.
Daniel Price examined them.
“One is missing.”
Nathan looked at him.
“The compliance archive?”
“Possibly.”
They searched the room.
Behind the desk, Lily wandered toward an old brass wastebasket.
“Aunt Grace?”
“Yes?”
“There’s a phone.”
Everyone turned.
Lily pointed.
Beneath several old newspapers lay a cheap prepaid phone.
Daniel Price picked it up with a handkerchief.
The screen was still on.
Nathan recognized the message interface.
He opened the sent folder.
Grace watched his face.
“What is it?”
Nathan held up the phone.
The threatening message had been sent from it.
Stop testing the child.
But that was not all.
There were photographs.
Grace entering the mansion.
Lily at preschool.
Sarah’s old apartment.
And one photograph taken eighteen months earlier.
The hospital where Sarah died.
Grace stared.
“Victoria was there.”
Nathan enlarged the image.
A blonde woman stood in the hospital parking structure.
The timestamp was thirty-seven minutes before Sarah’s crash was reported.
Grace’s breath stopped.
“No.”
Nathan looked at her.
Grace shook her head.
“No. Sarah’s accident happened three miles from that hospital. She wasn’t going to the hospital.”
Daniel Price said quietly, “Then why was Victoria there?”
Grace felt the room spin.
Sarah had believed her crash was an accident.
Everyone had.
But Victoria had been near the scene before emergency services even arrived.
Nathan looked at Daniel.
“Call Michael.”
Grace looked at the phone again.
One photograph remained.
It showed Sarah standing beside her car.
Across the bottom was a timestamp.
May you like
Nine minutes before the crash.
And behind Sarah, partly reflected in the car window, stood Victoria Hale.
