Chapter 2 - The House With Twenty-Three Bedrooms
The girl woke at 2:43 in the morning and screamed for her mother.
Gideon was sitting six feet away.
He had not slept.
The library fireplace burned low inside the Lake Forest estate, throwing orange light across dark shelves and the enormous Persian rug where Gideon had once spent December mornings building wooden train tracks with Juniper.
He had not entered the room on Christmas week in three years.
Tonight, a seven-year-old stranger lay beneath Juniper's old wool blanket.
The scream hit him like broken glass.
“Mama!”
Gideon was on his feet immediately.
The girl sat upright on the sofa, her brown hair tangled around her face, eyes searching every corner.
“Where is she?”
“She is alive.”
The words stopped her.
Gideon crouched several feet away rather than approaching.
“Your mother is in a hospital. She's being treated.”
The girl's eyes filled instantly.
“Did the bad man find her?”
“We don't know.”
“That means yes.”
Gideon stared at her.
Most children her age asked questions because they believed adults had answers.
This child asked questions because she already expected adults to lie.
“What is your name?” Gideon asked.
She looked down at the rabbit.
He waited.
Finally she whispered, “Ivy.”
“Ivy what?”
“Shaw.”
“Your mother's name?”
“Leah.”
Gideon nodded.
“My name is Gideon.”
“I know.”
That surprised him.
“You do?”
“Your picture is on buildings.”
Something almost resembling humor moved through his chest.
“That's unfortunate.”
Ivy did not smile.
She touched the rabbit's repaired ear.
“Is Mama really alive?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
Gideon went still.
Promises had become dangerous things in his vocabulary.
Three years earlier he had held Juniper's tiny hand and promised the doctors were going to fix everything.
He had promised they would go home.
He had promised Christmas would come again.
Children believed promises differently than adults did.
They placed their entire weight on them.
So Gideon chose his words carefully.
“I promise she was alive when my people found her.”
Ivy accepted that.
It was the first thing about her that frightened him.
She had already learned the difference between what a person wanted to promise and what a person could actually guarantee.
Daniel entered five minutes later carrying a folder.
He saw Ivy awake and changed direction.
“Kitchen has hot chocolate,” he said. “Real chocolate. Not powder.”
Ivy looked at Gideon.
“Can Rabbit come?”
Daniel glanced at the stuffed animal.
“Rabbit looks like he'd complain to management if we left him out.”
That finally produced something.
Not a smile.
Almost one.
A housekeeper named Rosa took Ivy toward the kitchen.
The moment the door closed, Daniel's expression changed.
“We have a problem.”
“You're going to have to narrow that down.”
Daniel placed the folder on the desk.
“Leah Shaw. Thirty-two. Compliance analyst for the Juniper Vale Foundation.”
Gideon did not move.
The fire cracked behind him.
“Say that again.”
“She works for your foundation.”
Gideon picked up the file.
The photograph attached to the personnel record showed a woman with tired brown eyes and dark hair tucked behind one ear.
Leah Shaw.
Employee for fourteen months.
Internal compliance.
Salary modest.
Performance reviews excellent.
No disciplinary history.
No family listed except one dependent.
Ivy Shaw.
Gideon's eyes lifted.
“Why didn't I know her?”
“You employ thirty-eight thousand people across the Vale companies and another four hundred through the foundation.”
“The foundation isn't supposed to be a company.”
“I know.”
“Who hired her?”
Daniel turned a page.
“Sebastian Rourke approved the department expansion last year.”
That name landed differently.
Sebastian Rourke had been Gideon's closest business partner for nineteen years.
He had stood beside Gideon at Juniper's funeral.
He had carried a small white coffin because Gideon's hands had been shaking too badly.
He was chairman of the Juniper Vale Foundation.
“He didn't personally hire a compliance analyst,” Gideon said.
“No. But he's in the chain.”
“Anything else?”
“Her hospital intake is wrong.”
“How?”
“Paramedics logged her as an assault victim found on Ashland at 9:17. But traffic cameras show she wasn't found there.”
Daniel pushed a tablet across the desk.
Grainy footage appeared.
Snow.
A woman stumbling into an alley.
A black SUV twenty yards behind her.
Then two men exiting.
Gideon's jaw hardened.
“They moved her.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Maybe because they thought she was dead.”
Gideon watched the footage again.
Leah stumbled.
One man caught her by the arm.
She fought.
The second man shoved her.
She struck the brick wall and disappeared from view.
Forty seconds later, the men carried her back toward the SUV.
But another car turned onto the street.
The men dropped her and fled.
“Can you identify them?”
“Not yet.”
“Vehicle?”
“Plate was cloned.”
“Of course it was.”
“There is something else.”
Daniel zoomed the image.
On the SUV windshield, barely visible through the snow, was a rectangular sticker.
Gideon knew it immediately.
Vale Executive Fleet.
His blood went cold.
“That could be copied.”
“It could.”
“Was it?”
“I checked the transponder logs.”
Daniel looked at him.
“The vehicle used a valid Vale fleet credential to enter the lower garage at 181 North Wacker yesterday afternoon.”
One of Gideon's buildings.
One of Gideon's credentials.
One of Gideon's vehicles, or something pretending convincingly enough to be one.
“They're inside my company.”
“Looks that way.”
Gideon walked toward the window.
Beyond the glass, snow covered the lawn all the way to the frozen lake.
For three years, this house had been a mausoleum.
Now it felt exposed.
“Move Leah.”
Daniel shook his head.
“I tried.”
Gideon turned.
“What do you mean, you tried?”
“St. Anthony's says she can't be transferred without physician approval.”
“Buy the hospital.”
“Already considered it.”
Gideon looked at him.
Daniel remained expressionless.
“Temporary inconvenience,” he said.
Gideon almost smiled again.
Then Daniel continued.
“We also have Chicago PD asking questions.”
“About Ivy?”
“They received the missing-child call. Caller claimed to be her uncle.”
“Is there an uncle?”
“No record of one.”
“Did he give a name?”
“Evan Shaw.”
Gideon looked back at Leah's file.
“Her husband?”
“Dead.”
“How?”
“Car accident two years ago.”
“Name?”
“Michael Shaw.”
“Any Evan?”
“None.”
Gideon shut the folder.
“Then no one takes the girl.”
“That was my recommendation.”
The kitchen door opened.
Ivy stood there with hot chocolate in both hands.
She had heard something.
Gideon could see it immediately.
Children who lived around danger developed the ability to hear what adults tried to hide.
“Who takes me?” she asked.
“No one,” Gideon said.
“You said someone takes the girl.”
“No one is taking you.”
“Police?”
Gideon hesitated.
That was enough.
Ivy backed away.
“No.”
“Ivy—”
“No police.”
She put down the mug so abruptly chocolate spilled across the table.
“Police came before.”
“When?”
“When Mama talked to the man with the gray tie.”
“What man?”
“At her office.”
Gideon crossed the room slowly.
“Your mother's office?”
Ivy nodded.
“She told me to color in the waiting room. Then a man came out. Gray tie. He was mad.”
“What did he say?”
“I don't know.”
“Try.”
Her small fingers closed around the rabbit's body.
“He said she didn't understand what she found.”
Daniel's eyes shifted to Gideon.
“What happened after that?”
“Mama took me home.”
“And police came?”
Ivy nodded.
“One policeman looked in Mama's bedroom.”
“Was he invited?”
“I don't think so.”
“What was he looking for?”
Ivy stared at Rabbit.
Gideon followed her eyes.
The repaired ear.
Pink thread.
Sewn badly.
Sewn by someone who had tried hard.
“Ivy,” he said quietly. “Did your mother hide something?”
She shook her head too quickly.
“I don't know.”
He did not push.
Instead he sat down.
“When my daughter was your age, she had a wooden music box. She hid everything inside it. Coins. Candy. Once, my car keys.”
Ivy finally looked at him.
“What was her name?”
“Juniper.”
“Where is she?”
Daniel looked away.
Gideon answered.
“She died.”
Ivy's expression softened.
Children could show pity without making it humiliating.
“I'm sorry.”
“So am I.”
“My daddy died too.”
“I know.”
Her face changed.
“How?”
Gideon immediately regretted the words.
“Your mother's file said so.”
“Oh.”
Silence.
Then Ivy moved toward him.
She held out the rabbit.
“His name is Albert.”
Gideon accepted the toy with both hands.
One glass eye was missing.
The left ear had three visible stitches.
“Albert has had a difficult life.”
Ivy leaned closer.
“Mama fixed his ear yesterday.”
Gideon's eyes rose.
“Yesterday?”
“She said she was sorry it was ugly.”
He looked at Daniel.
Then back at the rabbit.
“May I look at it?”
Ivy hesitated.
“She said nobody could.”
“Did she say nobody?”
Ivy thought.
“She said bad people couldn't.”
Gideon handed Albert back.
“Then you keep him.”
Daniel's phone vibrated.
He stepped aside.
Answered.
Listened.
Every trace of ease disappeared.
“What?”
Gideon watched him.
Daniel walked to the window and pulled the curtain aside.
“What happened?”
Daniel ended the call.
“North gate lost cameras.”
Gideon was already moving.
“Mechanical?”
“No.”
“Power?”
“No.”
“How many guards?”
“Four.”
“And?”
Daniel touched his earpiece.
“North Gate, report.”
Nothing.
“North Gate.”
Static.
Ivy froze.
Gideon saw the change in her face before he heard anything himself.
A low vibration came through the floor.
Engines.
More than one.
Daniel crossed to a security panel and opened the estate map.
Three red alerts flashed along the northern perimeter.
Then the front drive camera appeared.
A black SUV rolled slowly through the falling snow.
Headlights off.
The steel security gate was already open.
Gideon's voice turned quiet.
“Who authorized entry?”
Daniel checked.
His face hardened.
“The credential is yours.”
Gideon stared at the monitor.
Behind the first SUV came another.
Then a third.
Ivy pressed herself against Gideon's side.
She pointed at the screen with one trembling finger.
“That one.”
Gideon looked down.
“What?”
“The man.”
A passenger had stepped from the first SUV.
Dark coat.
Broad shoulders.
His face turned toward the house.
Even through grainy security footage, Ivy recognized him.
Her voice broke.
May you like
“The man who made Mama fall.”
At that exact moment, every light in Gideon Vale's twenty-three-bedroom mansion went out.
