Chapter 5 - Darkness swallowed the entire mansion.Someone screamed.
Mom grabbed me.
I heard footsteps.
Fast.
Then a gunshot.
The sound exploded through the hallway.
I buried my face against Mom's chest.
Vincent shouted:
“DOWN!”
More gunshots.
Glass shattered.
A guard fired toward the window.
Then silence.
Emergency lights flickered on.
Vincent stood in the center of the hallway.
No blood.
No visible wound.
But one guard was missing.
“Where's Marcus?”
No answer.
Vincent looked around.
The mansion had suddenly become a maze.
He moved toward the staircase.
A trail of blood led upstairs.
Mom grabbed his arm.
“Don't.”
Vincent looked at her.
“Stay here.”
He climbed.
I wanted to follow.
Mom held me back.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Vincent returned carrying the missing guard.
He was alive.
Barely.
Someone had struck him from behind.
Vincent looked furious.
But what bothered him most was what he held in his other hand.
A small envelope.
He handed it to Mom.
“My name is written on it.”
Mom opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Daniel.
Standing beside David Sterling.
But this time, there was a third person.
A woman.
Mom stared.
“Who is she?”
Vincent looked at the photo.
“Claire Monroe.”
The name from the list.
The woman who had been calling David.
The woman whose name carried a red mark.
Mom shook her head.
“I don't know her.”
Vincent flipped the photograph over.
Three words were written on the back.
SHE KNOWS EVERYTHING.
Then a phone rang.
Vincent answered.
A distorted voice said:
“You should stop digging.”
Vincent remained silent.
“Your little employee problem isn't worth the trouble.”
Vincent looked at Mom.
Then at me.
“I'm not digging for the employee problem.”
The voice laughed.
“No?”
“No.”
He looked at the photograph.
“I'm digging for Daniel Carter.”
Silence.
Then the voice changed.
“You shouldn't have said that name.”
Vincent smiled.
“Now I know I'm close.”
The call ended.
Mom stood up.
“Where is Claire?”
“We find her first.”
“And Daniel?”
“If he's alive, we find him too.”
“What if he doesn't want to be found?”
Vincent looked at her.
“That is what we're going to discover.”
One hour later, we were in another vehicle.
Vincent had traced Claire to a small apartment on the west side.
We arrived.
Door unlocked.
Lights on.
No one inside.
There were papers scattered everywhere.
A calendar.
Photographs.
Receipts.
One phrase repeated across the walls.
77 DAYS.
Mom stared.
“Why would she write that?”
Vincent picked up a photograph.
It showed employees standing outside Sterling's Bistro.
Every picture had a number.
One.
Two.
Three.
Up to seventy-seven.
Then he found something beneath a chair.
A child's drawing.
A family.
A little girl wearing a red hoodie.
Mom stopped breathing.
“That's Rory.”
Vincent turned.
The drawing was dated six months earlier.
Before I'd ever been to Sterling's Bistro.
Before Mom had missed her first paycheck.
Before anyone in our family knew Vincent Kane existed.
Mom whispered:
“Who drew this?”
Vincent didn't answer.
Because written beneath the drawing was a sentence.
SHE WILL BRING HIM TO US.
Mom looked at me.
I stared at the picture.
I didn't remember drawing it.
But there was one thing that scared me.
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The little girl in the picture wasn't standing beside her mother.
She was standing beside Vincent.
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