Chapter 3
Daniel grabbed Vanessa by the shoulders.
“Where are my children?”
Detective Cole pulled him away.
“Daniel!”
“Where are they?”
Vanessa stared at her husband with tears forming in her eyes.
But I didn’t believe them.
Not anymore.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel laughed like he had been punched.
“You don’t know?”
“The nanny took them.”
“Where?”
“I said I don’t know!”
Daniel tried to move toward her again.
Cole stepped between them.
“Everybody stops talking.”
He pointed at Vanessa.
“You’re coming with us.”
Her head snapped up.
“Am I under arrest?”
“You’re being detained while we investigate evidence of possible poisoning and the disappearance of two children.”
“You can’t—”
“Watch me.”
One officer moved behind her.
Vanessa looked at Daniel.
Then she said something that made the entire room go silent.
“Ask your mother.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
“What?”
Vanessa smiled through her tears.
“Ask Margaret where your children are.”
Detective Cole leaned closer.
“What does that mean?”
Vanessa’s expression hardened.
“I want a lawyer.”
Richard Hale spoke from the doorway.
“I’m Daniel’s attorney. I do not represent her.”
“Then call someone who does,” Vanessa snapped.
The officers took her out.
Daniel stood in the middle of his destroyed office, staring at the photograph.
Then he grabbed his phone.
He called his mother.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
His hands were shaking.
“I saw her downstairs twenty minutes ago.”
I remembered Margaret leaving her table just before the alarm.
At the time, I had assumed she was going to the restroom.
Now I wasn’t sure.
Daniel turned to Cole.
“Find my mother.”
Cole was already speaking into his radio.
I should have gone home.
I was a banquet server.
Not a detective.
Not family.
I had already gotten slapped, chased Vanessa through the hotel and nearly watched her burn evidence.
But then Daniel looked at me.
“Claire, did you see my mother leave the ballroom?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“A few minutes before the alarm.”
“Was she alone?”
I thought about it.
Then I remembered something.
“No.”
Cole stopped.
“Who was with her?”
“A man.”
“What man?”
“I don’t know his name. He was wearing hotel security clothes.”
Daniel frowned.
“Our security supervisors wear black suits.”
“This guy wore a gray uniform.”
Daniel and Cole exchanged a look.
“We don’t have gray uniforms,” Daniel said.
The detective pulled out his phone.
“Get me every camera between the ballroom and the penthouse.”
Daniel unlocked his computer.
The screen remained black.
He tried again.
Nothing.
“Network’s down.”
Cole swore quietly.
The fire alarm.
The camera system.
The children disappearing.
None of it was random.
Daniel hurried toward the door.
“I’m going upstairs.”
Cole followed.
So did I.
Nobody told me to.
The elevator controls had been disabled by the alarm, so we climbed twenty-eight floors through the emergency staircase.
By the time we reached the private level, my legs were burning.
Penthouse Two stood open.
A police officer guarded the entrance.
Daniel rushed inside.
The living room looked normal.
Cartoons still played silently on the television.
A plate of sliced apples sat on the table.
Two small backpacks were missing.
Daniel called their names even though he knew they were gone.
“Oliver?”
Nothing.
“Sophie?”
His voice cracked.
I entered the children’s bedroom.
Two beds.
Stuffed animals.
Books.
One night-light glowing beside the wall.
Then I saw something under Sophie’s pillow.
A phone.
“Daniel.”
He hurried in.
It was a cheap prepaid phone.
Not Sophie’s.
Cole put on gloves and lifted it.
The screen displayed one unread message.
YOU HAVE TEN MINUTES.
Daniel stared.
“Ten minutes for what?”
Cole tapped the notification.
The phone opened to a photograph.
Oliver and Sophie sat in the back seat of a car.
Oliver was holding his sister.
Both looked terrified.
A second message arrived.
BRING THE FILE ETHAN HID.
NO POLICE.
Daniel looked at Vanessa’s photograph still clutched in his hand.
“What file?”
Then another message.
YOUR MOTHER KNOWS.
Daniel called Margaret again.
This time, somebody answered.
No one spoke.
“Mom?”
Static.
Then a woman whispered.
“Daniel.”
He closed his eyes.
“Mom, where are you?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Where are Oliver and Sophie?”
“They’re alive.”
Daniel gripped the phone.
“Where?”
“You have to listen to me.”
“You tell me where my children are right now.”
Margaret started crying.
“I tried to protect you.”
“From what?”
“From Ethan.”
Daniel looked stunned.
“What are you talking about?”
“He discovered things.”
“What things?”
“About your father. About the company. About all of us.”
Daniel’s eyes hardened.
“Ethan is dead.”
“I know.”
“Did you know Vanessa was drugging him?”
Margaret didn’t answer.
That answer was enough.
Daniel nearly dropped the phone.
“Mom.”
“I never wanted Ethan dead.”
“But you knew.”
“Daniel, please.”
“How long?”
“Please listen.”
“How long did you know?”
“For months.”
Daniel shut his eyes.
I watched something break inside him.
Cole gestured for him to keep Margaret talking.
“Who has my children?”
Margaret whispered a name.
“Marcus Vale.”
Daniel’s face changed.
I knew the name too.
Everyone in Dallas business circles knew it.
Marcus Vale had once been Daniel’s father’s closest partner.
He disappeared from public life after a massive lawsuit nearly fifteen years earlier.
Daniel’s father had accused Marcus of stealing from the company.
Marcus lost everything.
“He’s supposed to be in Europe,” Daniel said.
“He came back.”
“Why?”
“Because Ethan contacted him.”
Cole moved closer.
“Ask where she is.”
Daniel did.
Margaret breathed heavily.
“I’m at the old Whitmore estate.”
Daniel frowned.
The Whitmore estate had been empty for years.
His father died there.
“Are the children with you?”
“No.”
“Is Marcus?”
A pause.
“He was.”
Daniel turned toward Cole.
“We’re going.”
Cole shook his head.
“We go. You stay.”
“My children—”
“Are exactly why you stay.”
Daniel looked ready to fight him.
Then Margaret whispered through the phone.
“Daniel, Ethan left a safe behind the portrait in your father’s study.”
Daniel stopped.
“What?”
“The file is there.”
“At the old house?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was afraid.”
“Of Marcus?”
“No.”
Her voice dropped.
“Of what Ethan found.”
The call ended.
Daniel stared at the phone.
Cole immediately began giving orders.
The police would approach the estate quietly.
No lights.
No sirens.
Daniel refused to stay.
Cole finally allowed him into an unmarked SUV as long as he remained behind the officers.
I assumed this was where I was finally done.
Then Daniel looked back at me.
“You should go home, Claire.”
I nodded.
I wanted to.
But before I could leave, my phone vibrated.
The video of Vanessa had been copied by police.
My phone had been returned.
The message came from an unknown number.
A photograph loaded.
It was me.
Standing in the penthouse hallway.
Taken less than thirty seconds earlier.
My blood turned to ice.
Then words appeared beneath it.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LET HIM DRINK.
I showed Cole.
His expression changed.
“Everyone away from the windows.”
He grabbed my arm and pulled me inside.
Daniel looked at the photo.
“That was taken here?”
I nodded.
Cole rushed into the hallway.
Officers searched the floor.
Nothing.
Then the elevator at the far end dinged.
The doors opened.
Empty.
But something rolled out.
A small red ball.
Sophie’s ball.
Daniel recognized it immediately.
He ran.
“Wait!”
Cole shouted.
Daniel reached the elevator.
Inside, written across the mirrored wall in red lipstick, were five words.
THE WRONG BROTHER DIED FIRST.
Daniel stared.
I didn’t understand.
Neither did he.
But Cole did.
His expression went dark.
“What does that mean?” Daniel demanded.
Cole hesitated.
Then he looked at Daniel.
“Your brother’s death may not have been the first attempt.”
Daniel’s face went blank.
“What?”
Cole took a breath.
“Three months before Ethan died, you were hospitalized after collapsing at your anniversary dinner.”
Daniel slowly turned toward me.
I remembered hearing about it.
Food poisoning, the newspapers said.
Cole continued.
“The toxicology report from that night was reexamined this morning.”
Daniel swallowed.
“And?”
“The same substance was in your blood.”
Daniel looked toward the elevator message again.
The wrong brother died first.
Vanessa hadn’t started with Ethan.
May you like
She had started with Daniel.
And whoever had my boss’s children knew every detail.
