Chapter 10 - THE SECRET UNDER MY CHILDHOOD FLOOR
The nursery had been locked for twenty-five years.
After my mother vanished, my father turned the room into storage.
When I inherited the estate, I ordered the wing closed.
I told myself childhood memories were useless.
Now Willa stood beside me while I opened the door.
Dust moved through the sunlight.
A wooden rocking horse remained near the window.
My old bookshelf.
Faded wallpaper covered with tiny ships.
And beneath the window sat the bed where I had waited for my mother to come home.
I stopped.
Willa noticed.
"You okay?"
"No."
She nodded.
"Fair."
She'd started saying that because I did.
I almost smiled.
Marianne's clue mentioned the floor.
We searched carefully with investigators present.
Under one loose floorboard, we found a metal tube.
Inside was the missing succession page.
Lorraine Whitmore.
Founder.
Fifty-one percent ownership.
Witnessed by Charles Whitmore.
And Victor Shaw.
My mother's hands trembled when she saw it.
"Thirty-one years."
My father sat down.
"I signed that."
Lorraine turned toward him.
"Then you destroyed me anyway."
Charles cried.
"I know."
No amount of regret could repair what he'd done.
But for once, he didn't ask her to forgive him.
He simply accepted the truth.
The page also contained a handwritten note from Stephen Whitmore.
If this survives, then Lorraine deserves justice.
My eyes filled.
My uncle had tried to help.
Maybe he hadn't died in an accident either.
Investigators reopened his case.
Meanwhile, Victor disappeared.
His office was empty.
His house abandoned.
His phone dead.
For the first time, the man who had spent decades manipulating everyone else was running.
Then security footage revealed something worse.
He had entered my estate the previous night.
Through a service tunnel.
A tunnel Andrew Keller had given him access to.
I immediately looked toward Willa.
"Where's Lorraine?"
"With Marianne."
"Where?"
"The guest apartment."
My blood turned cold.
We ran.
The apartment door was open.
Furniture overturned.
Marianne was on the floor, conscious but shaken.
Willa dropped beside her.
"Mom!"
"I'm okay."
"Where's Lorraine?"
Marianne began crying.
"He took her."
My entire body went cold.
Victor had taken my mother.
Again.
Thirty-one years after helping imprison her, he had done it a second time.
My first instinct was violence.
The old reflex.
Find him.
Break everything.
Make him afraid.
Then Willa grabbed my sleeve.
"Declan."
I looked at her.
Her eyes were wet.
"Don't become your father."
The words stopped me.
I took a breath.
Then another.
I called law enforcement.
Provided every property.
Every vehicle.
Every account.
Every safe house Victor might know.
We would find Lorraine.
But not by turning the city into another battlefield.
Two hours later, Victor sent a video.
My mother sat in a chair.
Alive.
Terrified.
Behind her stood a wall I recognized.
An old boathouse on Whitmore property.
Victor stepped into frame.
He smiled.
"Bring me the succession page, Declan."
My jaw tightened.
Then he added:
"Come alone."
The video ended.
Willa looked toward me.
"You're not going alone."
I stared at the screen.
Then my phone received another message.
A photograph.
Victor holding something against Lorraine's shoulder.
Not a weapon.
A syringe.
My mother looked terrified.
May you like
Beneath the image were five words.
"Ask her what happened last time."
