Chapter 5 - THE SAFE ROOM
Marcus called home.
No answer.
He called security.
Nothing.
Then Vanessa.
Nothing.
“Damn it.”
They raced back.
Police cars were already moving toward the mansion.
Derek had escaped through a basement exit during the confusion, but Clara had photographed the ledger and taken the flash drive.
When Marcus reached home, the front gates were open.
One security guard lay unconscious beside the control room.
Another was missing.
Marcus ran inside.
“Vanessa!”
No answer.
They searched the study.
The dining room.
The upstairs bedrooms.
Then Clara heard pounding.
“Wait.”
Three knocks.
Pause.
Three more.
From behind a bookshelf.
Marcus pressed a hidden panel.
The shelf moved.
Vanessa stumbled out of the safe room.
Her face was bruised.
Her dress was torn.
She collapsed.
“They took him.”
Marcus caught her.
“Who?”
“Julian.”
“Leo?”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“Your father.”
Marcus froze.
His father, Richard Blackwood, was seventy-eight and lived in a private wing of the mansion.
“He’s in Boston.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“He came back this afternoon.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“He told staff not to.”
Marcus immediately called Richard.
Voicemail.
Vanessa wiped blood from her lip.
“Julian found him before I could.”
“What does my father have to do with this?”
“Everything.”
Before she could explain, police flooded the house.
For the next hour, the mansion became a crime scene.
Detectives took statements.
Technicians collected evidence.
Marcus gave them the ledger.
Clara kept the flash drive.
She didn’t know why.
Instinct.
Something about the way Vanessa watched every piece of evidence made her uneasy.
Around two in the morning, Clara slipped into the kitchen and plugged the drive into an old laptop.
Most files were encrypted.
One wasn’t.
A video.
She clicked it.
Elena Blackwood appeared on the screen.
Thin.
Pale.
Terrified.
“If you’re seeing this, I’m probably dead.”
Clara stopped breathing.
“I don’t know who I can trust anymore. Julian knows I found the accounts. Vanessa knows more than she admits. Richard told me to stay quiet.”
Clara leaned closer.
Richard?
Elena continued.
“But there is one person Marcus must protect.”
Clara expected Leo’s name.
Instead Elena said:
“Clara Dawson.”
Clara nearly dropped the laptop.
Her own name.
On a video recorded four years ago.
“No,” she whispered.
On-screen, Elena stared directly into the camera.
“Clara, if you ever see this, your mother lied to you about who your father was.”
Footsteps sounded behind Clara.
She spun around.
Vanessa stood in the kitchen doorway.
May you like
And she was holding a knife.
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