Chapter 3 - THE NIGHT MY WIFE TRIED TO WARN ME
The sound was unmistakable.
Heavy magnetic locks engaged throughout the ballroom.
Vincent reached beneath his jacket.
My guards did the same.
“Don’t,” I said.
Everyone stopped.
I watched Vincent.
He watched me.
Twenty years of loyalty stood between us.
So did Serena’s warning.
Trust her before you trust the men closest to you.
“Did you lock the doors?” I asked.
“No.”
“Then who did?”
Vincent turned toward the security panel.
The screen had gone black.
Emma pulled Oliver behind her.
That irritated me for half a second.
Then I realized she had instinctively put herself between my son and danger.
“Backup power,” Vincent ordered.
One of the guards tried his radio.
Nothing.
The gala security system had been isolated.
Someone had planned this.
I took Oliver’s hand.
“Stay with me.”
He didn’t answer, but he obeyed.
Vincent moved toward the service entrance.
“Manual release should work.”
Before he reached it, the lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the ballroom.
Oliver gasped.
Then Emma began humming.
That song again.
Soft.
Steady.
The same melody Serena had sung during thunderstorms when Oliver was a toddler.
Emergency lights flickered on.
Oliver was holding Emma’s hand now.
I wanted to ask a thousand questions.
Instead, I drew my gun.
A crash came from the gallery.
One of my guards ran toward it.
“Wait.”
Too late.
A shot cracked through the mansion.
The guard dropped.
Guests had already left, but several employees were still somewhere downstairs.
Vincent fired toward the gallery.
A shadow disappeared behind a column.
“Kitchen corridor,” he shouted.
I grabbed Oliver.
Emma followed.
We moved through the service passage behind the ballroom while Vincent and the remaining guards covered us.
The corridor led to Serena’s old conservatory.
I hadn’t entered that room in two years.
I hated it.
Serena had grown white roses there.
After her death, I ordered the room closed.
Emma suddenly stopped.
“There.”
She pointed to a carved wooden panel beside the fireplace.
“What?”
“Open it.”
“How do you know—”
“Preston, please.”
She had never called me Preston before.
Another gunshot sounded behind us.
I pressed the hidden latch.
The panel opened.
A narrow staircase descended into darkness.
I stared at Emma.
“Serena showed me.”
“When?”
“The last time I saw her.”
We entered.
Vincent arrived seconds later, blood on his sleeve.
“You hit?”
“Grazed.”
He closed the panel behind us.
The passage ended beneath the mansion in an old wine cellar my grandfather had built during Prohibition.
Oliver shook against me.
Emma crouched in front of him.
“You remember the moon game?”
Oliver nodded.
“What moon game?” I demanded.
Emma looked at me.
“Serena taught him.”
My son held up one finger.
Emma whispered, “One moon.”
He held up two.
“Two stars.”
Three.
“Three wishes.”
Oliver breathed more slowly.
I felt anger rising beneath my fear.
She knew rituals I didn’t know.
Secrets between my wife and son.
Things Serena had apparently shared with a woman I had never met.
“Start talking.”
Emma looked at Vincent.
“Not with him here.”
Vincent laughed once.
“Lady, I’ve taken bullets for this family.”
“And Serena was afraid of someone inside this family.”
His face hardened.
“So now I’m the traitor?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
I stepped between them.
“Emma.”
She looked at me.
“The truth.”
She sat on an old wooden crate.
“My mother died when Serena was nineteen and I was eleven. We were placed with different relatives. Serena ran away. I ended up with an aunt in Wisconsin.”
“Why didn’t Serena tell me?”
“Because she thought I was safer if nobody knew where I was.”
“Safer from whom?”
“Our father.”
I knew Serena’s father had died before I met her.
At least, that was what she had told me.
Emma saw my expression.
“You were told Thomas Carter died in a car accident.”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t.”
The cellar seemed to become colder.
“What happened?”
“He worked for your father.”
That stunned me.
My father, Arthur Hale, had built the organization I inherited.
He had also died twelve years ago.
Emma continued.
“Thomas Carter kept financial records. Not the official books. The real ones. Payoffs. Judges. Police. Shipping routes. Everything.”
Vincent stared at her.
“That would make him the most dangerous accountant in Chicago.”
“He was.”
“What happened to him?”
“He tried to leave.”
I already knew how men like my father handled that.
Emma looked at me.
“Serena saw something the night our father disappeared.”
“What?”
“She never told me exactly. She only said your family was involved.”
I felt sick.
Serena had married me knowing my father might have murdered hers.
“Why marry me?”
“Because she believed you weren’t your father.”
That hurt worse than an accusation.
Emma reached into her pocket.
She removed a folded piece of paper.
“Six months before she died, Serena contacted me. She said someone had started searching for our father’s ledger.”
“What ledger?”
“The records he kept as insurance.”
Vincent swore quietly.
“If that exists, half the city would kill for it.”
Emma nodded.
“Serena thought she knew where he hid it.”
“Where?”
“She never told me.”
“Convenient.”
“She was scared.”
“Of me?”
“No.”
Emma looked toward Vincent again.
“Of someone you trusted.”
Vincent stepped forward.
“That’s enough.”
I raised a hand.
He stopped.
Emma continued.
“The last time I saw Serena, she gave me the necklace. She taught me the lullaby. She told me that if anything happened to her, I was supposed to find Oliver.”
“Why Oliver?”
“I don’t know.”
A tiny voice interrupted us.
“Book.”
All three adults froze.
Oliver stood beside the wine racks.
“What did you say?” I asked.
He pointed upward.
“Mommy’s book.”
Emma moved toward him.
“What book, sweetheart?”
Oliver pressed both hands against his ears.
I crouched.
“You’re safe.”
His breathing became uneven.
“Mommy gave me a book.”
“When?”
“Hospital.”
My heart stopped.
I remembered Serena asking to be alone with Oliver before she died.
Five minutes.
That was all.
When I returned, Oliver was crying and holding a children’s book.
I had forgotten about it.
“Where is it now?”
Oliver whispered, “My room.”
A loud metallic bang echoed above us.
Someone had found the hidden panel.
Vincent checked his gun.
“We have maybe sixty seconds.”
Emma grabbed my arm.
“Preston, if the ledger is inside that book—”
“They’ll go to Oliver’s room.”
We moved through the tunnel toward an exit beneath the garage.
Vincent went first.
Emma stayed with Oliver.
I followed last.
We emerged behind the carriage house.
My security vehicles sat twenty yards away.
Vincent raised his hand.
“Wait.”
He stared toward the main house.
A second-floor window glowed.
Oliver’s bedroom.
A figure stood behind the curtains.
Someone was already inside.
Then the window opened.
A man stepped onto the balcony holding a small blue children’s book.
Oliver screamed.
“Mommy’s book!”
The man looked directly at us.
And I recognized him.
May you like
Dr. Nathaniel Crane.
The psychiatrist who had treated my son for two years.
