Chapter 1 - THE BOY IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Audrey looked at the photograph on her phone.
Then at Nicholas.
“My brother.”
Nicholas's expression changed.
“How old?”
“Sixteen.”
“Name?”
“Liam Fallon.”
The answer came reluctantly, as though even saying the boy's name in this house might put him in greater danger.
Nicholas remained seated.
“Does he live with you?”
Audrey nodded.
“Our parents are dead. I've had guardianship since he was eleven.”
The message on her screen remained visible.
KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.
Underneath was the photograph of Liam leaving school that afternoon.
Nicholas held out one hand.
“May I?”
Audrey hesitated before giving him the phone.
He studied the photograph.
“This was taken today.”
“Yes.”
“How long has Graham been threatening him?”
Her eyes snapped upward.
She had never said Graham's name.
Nicholas handed the phone back.
“Audrey.”
She wrapped both hands around it.
“Three weeks.”
His expression became frighteningly calm.
“And the bruises?”
Silence.
Nicholas did not push.
He waited.
Finally she whispered, “Some of them.”
Something cold moved through his face.
“What does that mean?”
“Two nights ago, he grabbed me in the service hallway.”
“Why?”
“Because he thought I had taken something.”
“What?”
“I don't know.”
Nicholas stared.
Audrey swallowed.
“I mean it. I don't know.”
“Then why would he think you had it?”
“Because I saw something I wasn't supposed to see.”
Nicholas leaned forward.
“What?”
Audrey glanced toward the doorway.
“Mr. Rainer, if Graham still has people in this house—”
Nicholas stood.
Then walked to a panel beside the dining-room doors.
He entered a six-digit code.
A soft electronic chime sounded throughout the mansion.
Audrey froze.
“What did you do?”
“Locked the exterior doors.”
Twenty seconds later, Nicholas's private phone rang.
He answered.
“Yes.”
A man's voice spoke rapidly.
Nicholas looked toward Audrey.
“No employee leaves until I personally clear them. No one accesses the security office. Shut down all remote connections.”
Audrey's stomach tightened.
“You can't lock everyone in here.”
“Fire exits still function. Emergency services still have access.”
“Graham will know.”
“He already knows.”
Nicholas ended the call.
Then he did something that surprised her.
He placed his own phone on the table.
“I am not asking you to trust me because I'm Nicholas Rainer.”
Audrey said nothing.
“I'm asking you to decide whether continuing to protect Graham is more dangerous than telling me the truth.”
“I wasn't protecting him.”
“I know.”
His voice softened.
“You were protecting Liam.”
Her eyes burned.
Nicholas waited.
Finally Audrey sat.
“Last Tuesday, Graham asked me to bring coffee to the west security office.”
Nicholas frowned.
“Household staff aren't allowed there.”
“I know.”
“When you arrived?”
“The door was open.”
She took a breath.
“There was nobody inside.”
“So?”
“There were photographs on one of the monitors.”
“What photographs?”
“Employees.”
“Background files?”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“Pictures taken outside the estate.”
Nicholas became still.
“Explain.”
“My apartment. Liam's school. Maria at church. Your driver buying groceries. One of your accountants leaving his daughter's house.”
Nicholas's jaw tightened.
“These weren't security files?”
“They looked like surveillance.”
Audrey continued.
“I heard someone coming, so I started backing out.”
“Graham?”
“Yes.”
“He saw what you saw.”
She nodded.
“He asked what I'd taken.”
“And you said?”
“Nothing.”
“He didn't believe you.”
“No.”
Her hand unconsciously moved toward the bruises on her arm.
Nicholas noticed.
“What happened after that?”
“He grabbed me. Asked where I'd hidden the key.”
“What key?”
“I told you. I don't know.”
Nicholas's eyes narrowed.
“Then why Liam?”
“Because Graham thinks my father left me something.”
That sentence changed the room.
“Your father?”
“Thomas Fallon.”
Nicholas stopped breathing for half a second.
Audrey saw it.
“You know that name.”
He didn't answer.
Instead, he walked toward a cabinet beside the fireplace and removed an old leather folder.
Inside was a photograph.
Nicholas placed it in front of her.
Audrey recognized her father immediately.
He was younger.
Standing outside an industrial warehouse with three men.
One was Graham Keene.
One was Nicholas's father.
And the third looked so much like Nicholas that Audrey thought, for one strange second, it was him.
“Who is that?”
Nicholas's voice became quiet.
“My older brother.”
Audrey looked up.
“Julian.”
She had heard the name.
Everyone who had worked for the Rainers long enough knew Julian Rainer had died twelve years earlier.
A warehouse fire.
Nicholas stared at Thomas Fallon's face.
“Your father died twelve years ago, didn't he?”
“Yes.”
“In a warehouse accident?”
Audrey nodded.
Nicholas looked at her.
“He didn't die in a separate accident.”
Her skin went cold.
“What?”
“My brother and your father died on the same night.”
Nicholas turned the photograph over.
On the back was a date.
Audrey knew it instantly.
The date her father died.
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And below it were five handwritten words:
GRAHAM KNOWS WHO STARTED IT.
