Chapter 3 - Someone Was Already Inside
“Clare!”
Dominic moved before Vincent could stop him.
The mansion dropped into darkness.
Emergency lights should have activated within three seconds.
They didn’t.
That was the first bad sign.
The second was the scream from downstairs.
Dominic gripped the banister.
“Panic suite.”
Vincent already had his weapon out.
Two security men rushed past.
Dominic ignored the pain in his knee and descended.
A red emergency strip finally flickered to life along the baseboards.
The great room glowed dark crimson.
One chair was overturned.
The conference-room doors were open.
Arthur and the other council members stood inside.
“What happened?” Arthur demanded.
Dominic didn’t stop.
“If Ellie is hurt, I’ll ask you that question personally.”
Arthur’s face changed.
Dominic entered the west corridor.
Vincent reached the panic-suite door first.
Open.
His expression went dead.
“Clare?”
No answer.
The room was empty.
A child’s wooden latch board lay on the carpet.
Dominic stared at it.
“Where are they?”
A guard checked the bathroom.
“Gone.”
Vincent slammed his fist into the wall.
“No exterior alarm. Whoever took them didn’t leave through a monitored door.”
Dominic picked up Ellie’s toy.
One latch was broken.
Something had been shoved beneath it.
A folded strip of paper.
He opened it.
BASEMENT LAUNDRY.
Vincent grabbed his radio.
“No radios.”
Dominic’s tone stopped him.
“If they control the cameras, assume they hear us.”
They moved down the servant staircase.
Dominic’s knee burned with each step.
He didn’t care.
At the basement level, the smell hit first.
Bleach.
Wet concrete.
And something electrical.
Vincent went ahead.
They found Clare behind two laundry carts.
Her wrists were tied.
A cloth was stuffed in her mouth.
Dominic ripped it free.
“Ellie.”
Clare started sobbing.
“They took her.”
“Who?”
“I didn’t see his face.”
“Man? Woman?”
“Man. Black gloves.”
Vincent cut the rope.
Clare grabbed Dominic’s sleeve.
“He said if I screamed, he’d take her outside.”
Dominic crouched despite the pain.
“Where did he go?”
“He made me face the wall. Ellie was crying.”
Clare’s voice broke.
“She kept saying she wanted her toy.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“What else did he say?”
Clare squeezed her eyes shut.
“He said, ‘Mr. Voss tried to warn Dominic.’”
Vincent stared at her.
“Arthur?”
Dominic said nothing.
Too obvious.
Far too obvious.
“Then he said something else,” Clare whispered.
“What?”
“He said, ‘Now the little witness disappears too.’”
Dominic stood.
“Vincent, nobody touches Arthur.”
“What?”
“Not yet.”
“You think someone’s framing him.”
“I think somebody wants me angry enough to stop thinking.”
A faint sound came from the boiler corridor.
Click.
Clare’s head snapped up.
“That’s her toy.”
Dominic looked at the latch board in his hand.
Impossible.
Then another click.
Farther down the corridor.
Vincent moved first.
They found a maintenance closet.
Locked.
Dominic heard something inside.
A tiny sob.
“Ellie?”
“Mommy?”
Clare screamed her daughter’s name.
Vincent kicked the door once.
Twice.
The frame cracked.
Ellie was sitting behind a toolbox, wrapped in a maintenance coat.
Clare dropped to the floor and pulled her into her arms.
Dominic exhaled.
Then he noticed Ellie pointing toward the ceiling vent.
“He went there.”
Vincent looked up.
“Who?”
“The man.”
“You saw him?”
Ellie nodded.
“What did he look like?”
“A monster.”
Clare kissed her hair.
“He was wearing a mask.”
Ellie shook her head.
“No.”
Everybody stopped.
“What do you mean?” Dominic asked.
Ellie pointed at her own face.
“The man had no mask.”
“Then why monster?”
She touched her cheek.
“He has a cut.”
Vincent looked at Dominic.
Dominic knew almost everyone on the estate.
One man had a long scar along his right cheek.
“Rafael Dane,” Vincent said.
Dominic’s former driver.
The man who had been driving the SUV during the Lower Wacker crash.
A man who had supposedly died at the scene.
Dominic stared at him.
“Rafael is dead.”
Ellie shook her head.
“No.”
Dominic’s phone rang.
This time the caller ID displayed a name.
RAFAEL DANE.
Nobody spoke.
Dominic answered.
A familiar voice came through the speaker.
“You should have signed the papers, Dom.”
Dominic felt eleven weeks disappear.
The rain.
The crash.
The smell of blood.
Rafael motionless behind the wheel.
Except now the dead man was breathing into the phone.
“Where are you?”
Rafael laughed softly.
“Still giving orders.”
“If you wanted Ellie dead, she’d be dead.”
Vincent looked at him.
Dominic continued.
“So you want something else.”
“I want you to stop digging.”
“Into what?”
“The accident.”
Dominic’s eyes went cold.
“It wasn’t an accident.”
Silence.
Then Rafael said, “No.”
Clare held Ellie tighter.
Dominic asked the only question that mattered.
“Who paid you?”
Rafael laughed again.
“You keep staring at Arthur Voss.”
Dominic looked toward the dark ceiling.
“You’re telling me it wasn’t him?”
“I’m telling you something much worse.”
“What?”
“The man trying to take your chair isn’t the one who tried to kill you.”
The line clicked dead.
Then the lights came back on.
May you like
And standing at the far end of the basement corridor was Dr. Samuel Mercer.
Holding Dominic’s missing spare brace.
