Chapter 3 - THE EMPTY WHEELCHAIRGabriel didn't think.
He ran.
“Eli!”
The hallway was dark.
Emergency lights blinked red along the walls.
Hannah followed.
“Mr. Marlowe!”
Gabriel pushed open the bedroom door.
The bed was empty.
The wheelchair lay overturned beside the window.
The curtains moved in the wind.
“Where is he?”
Hannah pointed toward the floor.
Marks.
Two long scrape lines through the carpet.
Gabriel stared.
Someone had dragged Eli.
His blood froze.
“No.”
He ran toward the hallway.
Security guards appeared from the opposite staircase.
“Lock every exit!”
Too late.
The mansion doors had already been sealed from the inside.
Someone hadn't taken Eli out.
Someone had taken him deeper into the house.
Gabriel opened the security panel.
Nothing.
Dead.
Then Hannah grabbed his wrist.
“Basement.”
“What?”
“Your cameras.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“You said someone was watching.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because Claire told me where to look.”
Hannah pulled him toward the basement.
They reached a hidden service corridor behind the wine cellar.
Gabriel had lived in the mansion for eight years.
He had never seen the passage.
“How do you know this exists?”
“Claire showed me.”
The corridor ended at a steel door.
Locked.
Hannah pulled a small brass key from her pocket.
Gabriel stared.
“Where did you get that?”
“From your wife's grave.”
She inserted it.
Click.
The door opened.
Inside was a tiny room filled with old photographs.
Newspapers.
Medical records.
Bank statements.
And one giant photograph of Eli.
Taken when he was three.
On the wall beneath it was written:
PROJECT ELI.
Gabriel stared.
“What is this?”
Hannah didn't answer.
Then they heard something.
A faint tapping.
Behind the wall.
Gabriel rushed forward.
He pressed his ear against the steel.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
“Eli!”
Three taps.
Then silence.
Gabriel looked around.
“There!”
A hidden panel.
He pulled it open.
A narrow chamber appeared.
Eli was inside.
Alive.
His hands were tied.
His mouth was covered.
Gabriel fell to his knees.
“Eli!”
He tore the tape away.
Eli gasped.
“Dad!”
Gabriel grabbed him.
“Who did this?”
Eli shook.
“I don't know.”
“Did you see their face?”
A pause.
Then Eli whispered:
“It was someone I know.”
Gabriel's expression hardened.
“Who?”
Eli looked at Hannah.
Then at his father.
“He said Mom told him where the key was.”
Gabriel stared.
“What key?”
Eli's eyes filled with fear.
“The key to the room.”
Gabriel looked behind him.
Hannah was gone.
“Where is Hannah?”
No one answered.
Gabriel rushed into the corridor.
She wasn't there.
He ran to the staircase.
Nothing.
Then his phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
One message.
YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE FOUND ELI.
Another message arrived.
A photograph.
Hannah standing outside a cemetery.
Beside Claire's grave.
The date on the photograph was yesterday.
Gabriel's blood ran cold.
Hannah had told him she came to the grave.
But the photograph showed something else.
Someone stood behind her.
A man.
Gabriel zoomed in.
He recognized the face.
His head of security.
The man who had sworn he knew nothing about the missing camera footage.
Gabriel immediately called him.
No answer.
He called again.
Still nothing.
Then the mansion's front gate camera came back online.
One frame flashed.
A black SUV driving away.
Gabriel zoomed in.
The rear passenger window was slightly open.
Inside was Hannah.
And beside her…
someone who looked exactly like Claire.
Gabriel dropped the phone.
Impossible.
Claire had been dead for eleven months.
May you like
Unless…
she wasn't.
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