Chapter 5 - THE MAN INSIDE THE HOUSE
The mansion locked down.
Nobody left.
Nobody entered.
Adrien gathered the senior staff in the ballroom.
Forty-two employees.
Housekeepers.
Cooks.
Drivers.
Security.
Groundskeepers.
Clara stood beside the doorway holding Mia.
Adrien disliked that.
He wanted them in a safe room.
Clara refused.
“If someone inside this house wants her, I’m not putting her somewhere only your people know.”
Hard to argue.
Luca reviewed access logs.
One security badge opened the family stairwell at 2:19 a.m.
Owner:
Matteo Rusk.
A guard with nine years of service.
Matteo stood among the men.
Adrien looked at him.
“Badge.”
Matteo handed it over.
“I lost it yesterday.”
“Reported?”
“No.”
“Why?”
His face tightened.
“I thought it was in my apartment.”
Convenient.
Luca searched his locker.
Nothing.
Then Clara noticed his cuff.
A missing button.
Black.
Silver edge.
Everyone went still.
Matteo looked down.
“That isn’t mine.”
Mia pointed.
“Bad man.”
Clara’s arms tightened around her daughter.
Adrien stepped forward.
Matteo backed away.
Two guards moved.
He panicked.
Charged toward the side exit.
Adrien caught him with one shoulder and drove him against the wall.
Not a beating.
One controlled impact.
Enough.
Matteo fell.
Then came up again, swinging.
Adrien blocked him and put him on the floor a second time.
This time Luca cuffed him.
Mia whispered:
“He falls a lot.”
Clara almost laughed despite herself.
Adrien looked toward her.
Somehow that little sound mattered.
Then Matteo shouted:
“I didn’t touch the kid!”
“Who gave you the badge?” Adrien asked.
“No one.”
“Who wanted the rabbit?”
“I don’t know.”
Adrien crouched.
“Wrong night to lie.”
Matteo’s fear changed.
Not fear of Adrien.
Fear of someone else.
“I only had to search the room.”
“For what?”
“A key.”
“Who asked?”
Silence.
Then Adrien said:
“Carlo?”
Matteo’s face told him yes before his mouth did.
“Not directly.”
“Who?”
“Peter Voss.”
Clara flinched.
The lawyer who told her Daniel died.
Adrien stood.
There it was.
Voss connected Daniel.
Carlo.
The fake death story.
The attempt to recover the key.
“Where is Voss?”
Matteo shook his head.
“Don’t know.”
Luca’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“Found him.”
“Where?”
“Dead.”
The ballroom went silent.
Peter Voss had been discovered in his office thirty minutes earlier.
No obvious sign of struggle.
A note on the desk.
I FAILED CARLO.
Too convenient.
Then Luca added:
“Police found a second note.”
“To who?”
He looked at Clara.
“To her.”
Clara went still.
The note read:
Daniel was alive after the lake.
He came back for you once.
I stopped him.
Clara’s face emptied.
Adrien stared at the words.
May you like
Daniel Harper had survived whatever happened four years ago.
And Peter Voss had prevented him from reaching his wife.
