Chapter 6 - THE SCHOOL IN THE MOUNTAINS
Saint Alder stood behind iron gates on a mountain road surrounded by pine forest.
The former school had once housed troubled children of wealthy families. Its public records claimed it closed because of financial difficulties.
In reality, the property had become a private prison.
I remained at the hospital with Grace while Diana traveled with the tactical team. She kept me informed through a secured video link.
At 9:17 that morning, agents breached the main entrance.
The building appeared abandoned.
Dust covered the reception desk. Old student photographs lined the hallways. Classroom doors hung open.
But the heating system was running.
Fresh food filled the kitchen.
Someone had lived there recently.
Agents found locked rooms beneath the east dormitory.
The first contained medical supplies, restraints, and handwritten treatment schedules.
The second contained a woman.
Laura Rourke was alive.
She was forty years old, severely underweight, and disoriented from years of isolation. When officers asked about Daniel, she repeated one sentence.
“He is beneath the chapel.”
Diana and several agents entered the chapel.
Beneath the altar, they discovered a hidden stairway leading into an underground utility tunnel.
The smell nearly stopped them.
At the end of the tunnel was a reinforced door.
Inside, they found Daniel Rourke.
Alive.
Seven years after the state declared him dead, he sat chained to a hospital bed beneath fluorescent lights.
His hair had turned gray. One leg showed signs of untreated injury. Yet when Diana entered, he recognized her.
“You took your time,” he whispered.
Diana cried.
It was the first time I had ever seen her lose control.
Medics freed him.
Daniel immediately asked for Laura and Lily.
“Laura is here,” Diana said. “Lily is still missing.”
His relief vanished.
“Eleanor took her?”
“Yes.”
“She’ll go to the north airstrip.”
Agents searched the estate grounds.
Saint Alder included a private runway hidden beyond the forest. A small jet was waiting with engines running.
Eleanor’s vehicle stood beside it.
But Eleanor, Julian, and Lily were gone.
The pilot had been shot in the leg and left inside the hangar.
He told officers that Julian had turned against his mother.
According to the pilot, Eleanor ordered Lily onto the plane. Julian refused. A struggle began. Julian took the girl and escaped toward the forest.
Eleanor pursued them on foot.
Daniel provided details about an old emergency tunnel linking Saint Alder to an abandoned mining road.
Search teams entered the forest.
While they searched, Daniel told Diana what had happened seven years earlier.
He had discovered that Sterling Ridge used public agricultural-development funds to finance private political campaigns. Robert Sterling and Marianne Vale controlled the accounts. Eleanor handled threats and false identities.
Daniel arranged to meet Robert at the estate, believing Robert wanted to cooperate.
Instead, Robert imprisoned him beneath the bottling house.
For eleven days, Daniel was beaten and questioned about the evidence ledger.
Then Preston—working as a young private security contractor under his original name, Nathan Vale—helped move Daniel and Laura to Saint Alder.
“Preston was Marianne’s son,” Diana told me through the video call. “He initially followed orders.”
“But he changed sides?”
“After Lily was born. He began secretly helping them.”
Daniel tried to escape twice.
During the second attempt, Robert shot him.
Julian witnessed the shooting.
Believing Daniel dead, Julian helped his father hide the body in a transport van.
But Preston discovered Daniel was still breathing and moved him back to Saint Alder.
Robert never learned the truth.
“Then how did Robert die?” I asked.
Diana hesitated.
“Daniel says Eleanor killed him.”
Robert had become reckless. He wanted to confess after believing he had murdered an investigator. Eleanor pushed him from the vineyard cliff before he could speak.
Julian knew.
He had watched his mother kill his father.
From that moment, Eleanor controlled him with the threat that he would be charged as an accomplice in Daniel’s supposed murder.
It explained Julian’s fear.
It did not excuse him.
The forest search continued for hours.
Then Diana received a transmission.
Agents had found Julian near the mining road.
He had been stabbed.
Lily was with him.
Eleanor was gone.
Diana’s camera showed paramedics surrounding my husband. Blood soaked his shirt. Lily sat beside him, shaking beneath an emergency blanket.
Julian opened his eyes briefly.
“Tell Audrey I’m sorry.”
I felt nothing at first.
Then anger.
Not grief.
Not forgiveness.
Anger that he was offering another private apology after years of public cowardice.
“Tell him to stay alive and testify,” I said.
A medic turned toward Diana.
“We found something sewn into the girl’s jacket.”
Inside the lining was the black drive.
Lily had taken it from Eleanor.
“She said her mother told her never to let Eleanor reach the lake,” Diana reported.
“What lake?”
Daniel overheard the question from the ambulance.
His expression changed.
“Blackstone Lake.”
“What is there?”
“The original Sterling ledger.”
The document that could identify every corrupt official involved.
“Where exactly?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Laura hid it before she was taken. Only she knows.”
Diana radioed the team with Laura.
Before anyone could question her, an explosion shook Saint Alder.
Flames rose from the east dormitory.
Eleanor had doubled back.
May you like
She had set fire to the building.
And Laura Rourke was still inside.
