CHAPTER 4 The Hour of No Return
Rain hammered the shattered windows of Blackwood Manor.
The grandfather clock in the main hall chimed once.
10:00 p.m.
Exactly one hour.
That was all Victor Blackwood had given Ethan.
One hour to choose between caution and love.
One hour to decide whether to walk into a trap.
Daniel broke the silence first.
"You're not going."
Ethan didn't answer.
He picked up Amelia's bloodstained letter from the marble floor and carefully folded it into his jacket pocket.
"You heard me," Daniel repeated. "This is suicide."
"No."
Ethan's voice was steady.
"It's the only lead we've had in seven years."
Samuel spread the holographic blueprint across the conference table.
Every surviving member of the security team gathered around it.
"There are three possible entrances," Samuel said.
"The main entrance."
"A freight tunnel."
"And an underground drainage system."
Daniel shook his head.
"Victor expects us to use all three."
"He'll have cameras everywhere."
"He wants Ethan inside."
"So we don't play by his rules."
Ethan looked up.
"What are you thinking?"
Daniel zoomed in on the blueprint.
"The hologram Victor showed us."
"It wasn't complete."
Samuel frowned.
"How do you know?"
"Because every underground facility needs emergency exits."
"There aren't any."
Victor had deliberately hidden part of the layout.
Which meant there was still something he didn't want Ethan to discover.
Across the room, Lily sat quietly on the sofa, drawing with colored pencils she had found in the library.
Despite everything that had happened...
She was drawing flowers.
Not explosions.
Not guns.
Flowers.
Ethan walked over and knelt beside her.
"What are you drawing?"
She smiled faintly.
"Mommy's garden."
Ethan's throat tightened.
"You remember it?"
Lily nodded.
"There were white roses."
"And a swing."
"I used to feed birds."
Ethan froze.
Amelia had planted white roses the year they were married.
No one outside the family knew about the tiny wooden swing hidden behind the greenhouse.
No one.
Not even the staff.
He had built it himself.
"Did Mommy take you there?"
Lily's smile faded.
"No."
"I dreamed about it."
Samuel overheard the conversation.
Dreamed?
He slowly turned toward Ethan.
"Did Amelia ever visit the garden while she was pregnant?"
Ethan nodded.
"Every evening."
Samuel looked thoughtful.
"Did she talk to the baby?"
A sad smile crossed Ethan's face.
"All the time."
"She believed babies could hear everything."
Samuel whispered almost to himself,
"Maybe she was right..."
Daniel interrupted.
"We've got another problem."
He projected Victor's company records onto the wall.
Every property connected to Saint Gabriel had been purchased by shell corporations.
Every financial transaction disappeared into offshore accounts.
Except one.
A weekly delivery.
Medical oxygen.
Food.
Medicine.
Enough supplies...
For more than fifty people.
Samuel stared at the numbers.
"There are still people inside."
"Employees?"
Samuel slowly shook his head.
"I don't think so."
Nora, still handcuffed but calmer now, finally spoke.
"They never stopped."
Everyone turned.
"They kept bringing children."
The room went silent.
"I only visited three times."
"But every year..."
"There were more."
Daniel asked quietly,
"More what?"
She closed her eyes.
"Beds."
Lily suddenly dropped her pencil.
"I remember."
Ethan immediately knelt beside her.
"What is it?"
She squeezed both hands against her temples.
"They wore masks."
"Every morning."
"They asked questions."
"What kind of questions?"
She shut her eyes tighter.
"They wanted to know..."
"...what I dreamed."
Samuel looked confused.
"Dreams?"
Lily nodded.
"They wrote everything down."
"What happened if you didn't remember?"
Her tiny voice trembled.
"They made us sleep again."
Nobody spoke.
Samuel's medical instincts screamed that something was terribly wrong.
This wasn't ordinary child abuse.
It wasn't kidnapping for ransom.
Someone had spent years studying children.
Studying their dreams.
A security officer rushed into the room.
"Mr. Blackwood!"
"We found something in Nora's bedroom."
He handed Ethan a small wooden music box.
"It's locked."
Nora's face drained of color.
"No..."
"You weren't supposed to find that."
Ethan placed the box on the table.
"There isn't a key."
"There doesn't need to be."
Nora reached over with shaking hands.
She pressed three carved flowers on the lid.
Click.
The music box opened.
Inside...
There was no jewelry.
Only photographs.
Hundreds of them.
Every single one showed Lily.
At different ages.
Sleeping.
Reading.
Playing.
Crying.
Eating.
Growing.
Someone had documented nearly every day of her life.
Daniel slowly flipped through the stack.
Then stopped.
"What is this?"
The last photograph had been taken only yesterday.
Lily stood beside Ethan in the mansion garden.
Neither of them was looking at the camera.
Someone had been watching them from inside the estate.
Very recently.
Daniel looked around the room.
"We have another spy."
Before anyone could respond...
The mansion's landline rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Nobody moved.
Daniel nodded toward Ethan.
"Speaker."
Ethan answered.
"Victor."
Instead...
A little boy's voice spoke.
"Hello?"
Everyone looked at Nora.
She was already crying.
"M-Michael?"
The little boy sniffled.
"Mom?"
Nora collapsed to her knees.
"My baby..."
"I thought you were dead."
The child's voice sounded frightened.
"They said you left me."
"They said you didn't want me anymore."
Nora sobbed uncontrollably.
"No..."
"No..."
"I searched for you."
A calm male voice interrupted.
"Reunion time is over."
Victor.
Nora screamed,
"Please!"
"Don't hurt him!"
Victor ignored her.
"Ethan."
"You have forty-three minutes."
The call ended.
Daniel slammed his fist onto the table.
"He's playing with us."
"No."
Samuel stared at the disconnected phone.
"He's proving something."
"What?"
"He kept Amelia alive."
"He kept Nora's son alive."
"He didn't kill them."
Daniel frowned.
"So?"
Samuel looked toward Lily.
"If Victor wanted witnesses dead..."
"...they'd already be dead."
Ethan understood instantly.
"Then why keep them alive?"
Samuel's answer chilled everyone.
"Because they're part of the experiment."
Lily suddenly stood up.
"I know where Mommy is."
Every head turned.
"You remember?"
She nodded slowly.
"There was music."
"What kind?"
"The same song..."
She pointed at the music box.
"...this song."
Nora stared in horror.
"Impossible..."
Lily walked toward the open box.
Without hesitation, she turned the tiny brass key.
A delicate lullaby filled the room.
The melody was hauntingly familiar.
Ethan felt his heart stop.
Amelia used to hum that exact lullaby every night while she was pregnant.
No recording of it had ever existed.
No one else should have known it.
Yet as the melody played...
Lily quietly sang every word.
Not a single lyric was wrong.
Ethan stared at her in disbelief.
"I... I never taught you that."
Lily looked up.
"Mommy did."
"When?"
She answered with complete innocence.
"Yesterday."
Silence crashed over the room.
Yesterday?
That was impossible.
Unless...
Amelia had been conscious.
Very recently.
Very close.
Then Daniel's tablet beeped.
A facial recognition alert.
One of the mansion's hidden exterior cameras had briefly come back online before being disabled.
It had captured a blurry figure leaving through the servants' gate.
Daniel enlarged the image.
His face turned pale.
The person wasn't one of Victor's men.
It wasn't a security guard.
It wasn't Nora.
It was the mansion's elderly gardener.
A man who had worked for the Blackwood family for thirty-one years.
Hidden inside his wheelbarrow...
Was a high-powered military radio.
Daniel whispered,
"We've been betrayed..."
May you like
"...since before Amelia died."
END OF CHAPTER 4
