Chapter 4 - The Man Who Should Have Been DeadThe gunshot sent everyone diving for cover.
Rosa pulled Lily beneath the staircase.
Marcus hit the floor behind a stone column.
Another shot.
A mirror exploded.
Glass rained across the hallway.
“Where?” Marcus shouted.
No answer.
The emergency lights flickered on.
Red.
Dim.
Pulsing.
The pale man held a weapon.
The broad man had disappeared.
Victoria was gone.
Marcus looked around.
“Where is Victoria?”
Rosa whispered, “She ran.”
Marcus followed the sound of footsteps toward the east wing.
He reached the library.
Empty.
Then Lily spoke from behind him.
“Not there.”
Marcus turned.
She was still in Rosa's arms.
“Where?”
She pointed to the bookshelves.
“The blue watch.”
Marcus stared at the shelves.
A faint metallic tapping echoed from inside.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
He approached slowly.
The sound grew louder.
Then a panel opened.
A hand appeared.
Marcus recoiled.
A man stepped out.
Older.
Gray-haired.
Wearing a dark coat.
A blue-faced watch strapped to his wrist.
Marcus stopped breathing.
The man's eyes met his.
“Hello, Marcus.”
Marcus knew that voice.
Impossible.
He had heard it only once in his childhood.
At his mother's funeral.
It belonged to his uncle Daniel.
The man everyone believed had died twenty-three years ago.
Marcus stepped backward.
“No.”
Daniel smiled sadly.
“That's what your grandfather hoped you'd say.”
Rosa gasped.
Victoria emerged from behind the shelves.
She wasn't running anymore.
She was crying.
“You see?” she whispered. “I told you.”
Marcus couldn't move.
Daniel walked toward him.
“You were never supposed to inherit Whitmore Logistics.”
Marcus's voice came out broken.
“You're dead.”
“I was almost dead.”
“Why?”
“Because your grandfather wanted the truth buried.”
Daniel stopped beside the desk.
“I found the ledger.”
Marcus stared.
“So they killed you?”
“No.”
Daniel looked at Victoria.
“They killed everyone who knew where it was.”
Victoria lowered her head.
“My father was one of them.”
Marcus felt dizzy.
“How did you survive?”
Daniel reached beneath his coat and removed a small black notebook.
“Because someone pulled me out before the fire reached the basement.”
“Who?”
Daniel looked at Lily.
The toddler was watching him without fear.
“My brother's housekeeper.”
Rosa stared.
Daniel smiled.
“Her name was Elena Delgado.”
Rosa's face went white.
“My mother?”
Daniel nodded.
“She saved my life.”
Marcus looked at Rosa.
“You knew?”
Rosa shook her head rapidly.
“I didn't know anything.”
Daniel's eyes softened.
“She never told you because your mother understood what silence could cost.”
Then the lights returned.
Fully.
The room looked normal again.
Except Daniel was still standing there.
Alive.
And Marcus realized something worse.
“You said they killed everyone who knew where the ledger was.”
Daniel nodded.
Marcus swallowed.
“Then why are these men here?”
Daniel's expression darkened.
“Because the ledger was never lost.”
“Where is it?”
Daniel looked toward Lily.
The toddler was holding something in her tiny fist.
A brass key.
Marcus stared.
“Where did she get that?”
Rosa looked horrified.
“She was asleep when I found her.”
Lily opened her hand.
The key dropped onto the carpet.
Engraved across its surface were three words:
LIBRARY. CHILD. WALL.
Daniel's face changed.
“Where did she find that?”
Lily pointed upstairs.
“Miss Victoria gave it to me.”
Marcus slowly turned toward Victoria.
Victoria's eyes widened.
“I never gave her that.”
Lily shook her head.
“Yes, you did.”
Then she added:
“When you were talking to the man in the red room.”
Victoria went pale.
“There is no red room.”
Lily smiled innocently.
“Yes, there is.”
She looked at Marcus.
“That's where Mommy used to cry.”
Rosa stopped breathing.
Because she suddenly remembered a room in the old estate she had been forbidden to clean.
May you like
A room she had never seen opened.
A room that had always smelled faintly of smoke.
