Chapter 3 - BLOOD MONEY
“Andrew?”
Daniel replayed the recording.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Each time, the voice remained unmistakable.
Andrew Mercer.
His older brother.
His business partner.
His best friend for almost forty years.
Noah covered his ears.
“I don’t like that one.”
Daniel stopped the recording.
“How long have you been hearing them talk?”
Noah shrugged.
“A long time.”
“Where were you kept?”
“Different rooms.”
“In this house?”
“Sometimes.”
Daniel felt sick.
Sometimes.
That single word told him this nightmare was bigger than one hidden room.
“Who fed you?”
“Mrs. Vale.”
“Who is Mrs. Vale?”
“A lady with gray hair. She gives me medicine.”
“What medicine?”
Noah looked down.
“It makes me sleep.”
Daniel turned away.
He slammed his fist into the stone wall.
“Daniel,” Hannah warned.
“No. Don’t tell me to calm down.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
He looked at her.
For the first time, Hannah’s eyes were filled with fury too.
“I was going to tell you we need to keep him awake until a doctor we trust sees him.”
Daniel nodded.
“You’re right.”
Noah tugged his sleeve.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Uncle Andrew said you cared about the company more than me.”
Daniel crouched again.
“That’s a lie.”
“He said if I came home, you’d send me back.”
“No.”
“He said you stopped looking.”
Daniel couldn’t answer.
Because that part felt true.
He had stopped.
After the funeral.
After the death certificate.
After holding a box containing what he believed were his son’s ashes from the hospital’s private memorial service.
Daniel had accepted the impossible because trusted people told him there was nothing left to save.
Noah watched his face.
“You did stop.”
Daniel’s eyes filled.
“I thought you were gone.”
“Did you look for me?”
Daniel swallowed.
“Not after they told me you died.”
Noah turned away.
That hurt worse than any accusation.
Hannah knelt beside the child.
“Noah, your father believed a lie.”
“They made everybody believe it.”
Daniel looked up.
“Everybody?”
Noah nodded.
“There were papers.”
“What papers?”
“About Mom.”
Daniel’s breathing stopped.
Noah’s biological mother, Evelyn, had died four years earlier when her car went over a bridge during a storm.
Police ruled it an accident.
Daniel had never completely believed it.
“What about your mother?”
Noah reached beneath his shirt.
He pulled out a thin silver chain.
A small key hung from it.
“Mrs. Vale said Celeste was stupid for keeping Mom’s box.”
Daniel touched the key.
“What box?”
“The one behind my room.”
The hidden room.
Daniel stood.
“We’re going back.”
Hannah grabbed him.
“That ballroom may be full of people working for Celeste.”
“My son says there is evidence about my dead wife.”
“And your living son is standing right here.”
Daniel looked at Noah.
Hannah was right.
Then they heard a metallic click at the end of the passage.
Someone was unlocking the hidden door.
Hannah switched off her flashlight.
“Don’t make a sound.”
The door opened.
A beam of light cut through the darkness.
A man stepped inside.
Daniel recognized the silhouette.
“Mason?”
Mason Reed had been Daniel’s head of security for eight years.
May you like
Mason raised a pistol.
And pointed it directly at Noah.
