Chapter 8 - the room above the ballroom
Gideon entered the estate carrying no luggage and showing no concern that police had been searching for him.
He looked thinner than before. His gray suit was wrinkled, and a bruise darkened one side of his jaw.
Everett met him in the entrance hall.
“Where have you been?”
“Hiding from your mother.”
Celeste’s voice came from behind him.
“That is an interesting beginning.”
Her car had arrived through the service gate while the cameras were down. She entered with Victoria, Miles, Julian, and several other Hale relatives.
Lena stepped from the library.
“No one leaves the entrance hall.”
Gideon looked at her.
“You must be Ms. Ortiz.”
“Detective Ortiz.”
“You returned to public service quickly.”
“I never left it completely.”
Two uniformed officers entered behind Celeste.
She stopped.
“You invited police to Christmas dinner?”
Everett looked at Gideon.
“They were invited when someone forged my wife’s signature.”
Gideon removed his gloves.
“Then arrest Celeste.”
Celeste laughed once.
“You wrote the authorization.”
“At your request.”
“You said Maren had agreed.”
“You told me she would.”
“You stole Samuel’s trust from the music room.”
“You gave me the box.”
Their accusations collided in the center of the hall.
Maren watched their faces.
Neither was entirely lying.
Neither was telling the truth.
Lena raised her voice.
“Everyone enters the dining room. Phones on the table. No one goes upstairs.”
Gideon looked toward Noah’s carrier.
“The child is here.”
Maren stepped between him and the baby.
“You do not look at him.”
“I helped create the structure that protects him.”
“You tried to steal my signature.”
Gideon’s expression changed.
“That pen did not come from me.”
“Your division developed the technology.”
“Hale Meridian developed it. Julian authorized its internal use.”
Julian stepped forward.
“That is false.”
“Your credentials approved the purchase.”
“My credentials also approved the trust declaration while I was asleep.”
Gideon turned to Everett.
“Someone is using all of us.”
Celeste removed her coat.
“You disappeared for two weeks and returned with a story.”
“I disappeared because someone tried to kill me.”
The room became silent.
Gideon touched the bruise on his jaw.
“I was taken from my office after you left,” he said to Celeste. “I woke in a warehouse near the river. They wanted the original identity schedule.”
“Who are they?” Everett asked.
“I never saw their faces.”
“Convenient,” Lena said.
“They knew every protected name except one.”
Maren tightened her hand around Noah’s carrier.
“Whose name?”
Gideon looked at Everett.
“The first child.”
Rosa stood near the library door.
The tray in her hands trembled.
Gideon noticed the photograph lying on the entrance table.
His face lost its remaining color.
“Where did you get that?”
“It was left beside my son,” Maren said.
Gideon moved toward it.
Everett blocked him.
“You recognize the babies.”
“Yes.”
“Which one is me?”
Gideon looked at Celeste.
She stared back at him.
“I cannot answer that.”
“You mean you will not.”
“I mean the answer is in the sealed schedule.”
Lena’s radio sounded.
An officer stationed near the security room reported that the recording system had not failed.
Every camera had been physically disconnected inside the walls.
Someone already inside the estate had cut the lines.
“The house was searched this morning,” Everett said.
“Then whoever did it was hiding somewhere the search did not cover,” Lena replied.
Rosa looked toward the ceiling.
“The old servant passage.”
Everett turned.
“What passage?”
“There is a narrow corridor behind the dining room walls. It leads to the room above the ballroom.”
“I thought that room was sealed.”
“It was.”
They moved through the library and opened a concealed door behind a bookcase.
Dust covered the narrow stairs except for one set of recent footprints.
At the top was a locked wooden door.
Everett forced it open.
The room beyond had once been a private viewing gallery overlooking the old ballroom. Now it contained monitors, cables, medical supplies, and stacks of copied documents.
Maren recognized the signature pen packaging.
On a folding table lay photographs of her leaving the hospital, feeding Noah in the nursery, and meeting Lena in the library.
Someone had watched them for weeks.
Julian approached one of the monitors.
“This equipment came from Hale Meridian.”
Gideon looked around the room.
“So did the software.”
Lena examined an open laptop.
“The camera feeds were routed here before being cut.”
Maren noticed a glass bottle beside a folded cloth.
The label carried the name of Northbridge Wellness.
The same clinic Celeste had wanted to send into the house.
Beside the bottle was a printed medical report declaring Maren mentally incapable of managing financial decisions.
The report was dated the following day.
Her signature appeared at the bottom.
Lena sealed it inside an evidence bag.
“They planned to declare you unfit tomorrow.”
Everett looked at Celeste.
She shook her head.
“I have never been in this room.”
Gideon picked up a stack of bank forms.
“These are transfer instructions.”
“To Celeste?” Maren asked.
He turned the final page over.
“No.”
“Who?”
Gideon read the account name.
Then he looked toward the dining room below.
“The beneficiary is already in the house.”
A floorboard creaked behind them.
May you like
The door slammed shut.
The lock turned from the other side.
