Chapter 2 - THE HOUSE WITH NO FOOD
Kais crossed the street so quickly that he did not remember closing the Escalade door behind him.
Graham Barlow saw him coming.
The irritation on the older man’s face changed instantly.
“Kais?”
Isa turned.
For half a second, she simply stared.
Her plastic container slipped from her fingers.
It struck the stone step with a hollow clatter.
“Daddy?”
The word destroyed him.
Kais dropped to one knee.
Isa ran into him.
There was no joyful scream.
No excited story about school.
No laughter.
She simply wrapped both arms around his neck and held on.
Too tightly.
Like a child afraid that if she loosened her grip, he would disappear again.
Kais pulled her against his chest.
And immediately felt what the lavender dress had hidden.
Her shoulder blades.
Her ribs.
The sharpness of her spine.
She was thinner.
Not slightly thinner.
Alarmingly thinner.
“What happened to you?” he whispered.
Isa buried her face against his neck.
“Are you staying this time?”
Kais closed his eyes.
Behind them, Graham shifted awkwardly.
“Kais, I didn’t realize you were back.”
Kais opened his eyes.
The coldness in them stopped the man from saying anything else.
“My daughter asked you for food.”
Graham’s face hardened defensively.
“She’s been coming over for days. I thought it was some kind of game. You people own half the damn ridge.”
“You thought a six-year-old child begging for leftovers was playing a game?”
“She said there was no food.”
“And you laughed at her.”
Graham looked away.
Kais stood with Isa in his arms.
“She asked for one cookie.”
There was something about the quiet way he said it that made Graham take a step backward.
“I was going to give her something.”
“No, you weren’t.”
Kais picked up the empty plastic container.
Then he walked away.
Isa kept both arms around him as they crossed the street.
When they reached the Hart property, Kais noticed something he had missed from inside the vehicle.
The electronic gate panel was dead.
Not disabled.
Dead.
The small green indicator light that normally pulsed beside the keypad was black.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Can I have something from your car?”
“What do you want?”
“Anything.”
He stopped walking.
Isa looked embarrassed.
“Something to eat.”
Kais felt his stomach twist.
He carried her directly back to the Escalade, opened his travel bag, and searched with shaking hands.
He found two sealed granola bars from the airport lounge.
Isa’s eyes widened.
“Can Mommy have one?”
Kais stared at her.
“You eat both.”
“But Mommy—”
“I have more food coming.”
It was a lie.
He had not called anyone.
But within thirty seconds, he was on his phone ordering enough groceries and prepared meals to feed the house for weeks.
Isa ate slowly.
Too slowly.
Children who were merely hungry tore into food.
Isa broke each granola bar into tiny pieces.
She chewed carefully.
She drank water between bites.
Kais recognized the behavior.
Someone had taught her to make food last.
His rage became something colder.
He carried Isa inside.
The front doors were unlocked.
That was impossible.
Hart Manor had a security system sophisticated enough to detect a broken downstairs window before the glass reached the floor.
Yet no alarm sounded.
The entrance hall smelled stale.
Dust lay beneath the chandelier.
Several bulbs had burned out.
A vase near the staircase contained flowers that had dried weeks ago.
“Where’s Mrs. Jensen?”
Isa looked down.
“Gone.”
“Mara?”
Isa nodded.
“And Connie?”
“Gone.”
“The grounds crew?”
“Gone.”
Kais walked into the kitchen.
The refrigerator light came on when he opened it.
That was almost worse.
The shelves were empty.
There was mustard.
A jar of pickles.
Half a bottle of expired salad dressing.
Two containers of yogurt seven days past date.
Nothing else.
He opened the freezer.
Ice.
One bag of peas.
Three frozen dinner rolls.
The pantry contained rice, flour, some canned tomatoes, and an open box of crackers with only crumbs left inside.
Kais stood very still.
He remembered authorizing $24,000 a month for household expenses before leaving.
Food.
Utilities.
Staff.
Maintenance.
Transportation.
Isa should have had more food than she could possibly eat.
Instead, she had been begging Graham Barlow for a cookie.
“Where’s your mother?”
Isa pointed upstairs.
“Is she sick?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“How sick?”
Isa’s eyes filled.
“She sleeps a lot.”
Kais was running before she finished.
He climbed the stairs two at a time.
“Rian!”
No answer.
“Rian!”
He found her in the master bedroom.
The curtains were shut.
The air smelled faintly of sweat and medicine.
Rian Hart lay beneath a thin blanket.
For one terrible moment, Kais thought she was dead.
Then she moved.
Her face was pale.
Her dark hair lay tangled against the pillow.
Her cheeks had hollowed.
A half-empty glass of water sat beside the bed.
Three prescription bottles stood beside it.
Kais reached her.
“Rian.”
Her eyes opened slowly.
Confusion passed through them.
Then terror.
“Kais?”
“I’m here.”
She tried to sit up.
He caught her shoulders.
“You’re burning up.”
“No.”
“Rian—”
“No hospital.”
“What?”
Her fingers closed around his wrist with surprising strength.
“Don’t call Hart Security.”
He froze.
“Why?”
“Promise me.”
“Rian, Isa was outside begging for food.”
Pain crossed her face.
“I know.”
“You know?”
“I couldn’t stop her.”
“What the hell happened here?”
Her eyes moved toward the bedroom door.
Isa stood there holding the second half of her granola bar.
Rian’s face crumpled.
“Oh, baby.”
Isa ran to her.
Kais helped her onto the mattress.
Mother and daughter held each other.
Kais had never felt more useless in his life.
He had negotiated billion-dollar contracts.
He had stared down senators, financiers, hostile boards, and competitors who would have celebrated his death.
But he did not know how to fix the sight in front of him.
“Tell me what happened.”
Rian looked at Isa.
“Sweetheart, could you get Mommy some water?”
Isa nodded and left.
The instant she disappeared, Rian whispered, “They’re listening.”
Kais stared at her.
“Who?”
“Your security people.”
“My security people?”
“They aren’t yours anymore.”
A chill moved through him.
Rian reached beneath the pillow.
She pulled out an old flip phone.
Not a smartphone.
A cheap prepaid phone.
The screen was cracked.
“I bought this with cash two months ago before they stopped letting me leave alone.”
“Stopped letting you leave?”
“Julian said you ordered it.”
Kais’s expression changed.
Julian Hart.
His half brother.
Chief financial officer of Hart Global Infrastructure.
The man Kais had trusted to oversee the company while he handled the European expansion.
“What exactly did Julian tell you?”
“That you discovered I’d been moving money.”
“What?”
“He said your lawyers were investigating me. He said I shouldn’t contact you because every call was being recorded for the divorce.”
Kais almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was insane.
“I never filed for divorce.”
“I know that now.”
“You believed him?”
“At first? No.”
She swallowed.
“Then your number stopped working. My emails bounced. Your assistant told me you refused my calls. The household account was frozen. Mara was fired. Then the other staff disappeared one by one.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“I tried.”
Kais waited.
Rian’s eyes went distant.
“One of Julian’s security contractors drove me to the station. Before we got there, he showed me photographs of Isa leaving school.”
Kais stopped breathing.
“He said if I accused the family of anything, they would tell police I was unstable and had been stealing from you. He had medical records. Bank statements. Messages that looked like they came from me.”
“What did he want?”
Rian looked toward the door.
Then she whispered the answer.
“My signature.”
“On what?”
“Isa’s trust.”
Kais went completely still.
When his father died, he had left eighteen percent of the family holding company in trust for Isa.
The shares remained nonvoting until she turned twenty-five.
Unless her legal guardians signed a temporary proxy agreement.
Kais had refused every suggestion to touch it.
Always.
“What did Julian want the proxy for?”
“Control.”
Kais stared at her.
“He already controls finance.”
“He wants the board.”
The pieces began moving inside Kais’s mind.
His European expansion.
The new loans.
The board restructuring Julian had recommended.
The investor meetings Kais had missed because his calendar had mysteriously changed.
“How long has he been asking you to sign?”
“Eleven weeks.”
“And when you refused?”
“They cut off everything.”
Kais looked at the empty water glass.
“You mean he starved you.”
Rian’s eyes filled.
“I kept thinking you would come home.”
He looked away.
That sentence hurt more than anything else.
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
Kais answered.
“Mr. Hart?”
“Yes.”
“This is Mercer Island Police. We received an automated welfare alert connected to your residence.”
Kais frowned.
“I didn’t send one.”
There was silence on the line.
Then the officer said, “Sir, according to the security company monitoring your estate, the alert originated from inside your house seventeen minutes ago.”
Kais looked at Rian.
She went pale.
“I told you,” she whispered.
A sound came from downstairs.
A door closing.
Kais turned toward the hallway.
Isa appeared at the bedroom entrance with the glass of water in both hands.
Her voice was barely audible.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“There’s a man in the kitchen.”
Kais slowly put the phone down.
“Who?”
Isa looked over her shoulder.
May you like
“The one Uncle Julian told me never to talk to.”
And from somewhere below them, heavy footsteps began climbing the stairs.
