Chapter 4 - The Forgotten Daughter of Warren House
Florence Reed began telling the truth from the beginning.
She spoke from her hospital bed while Detective Ruiz recorded every word. Spencer sat near the window with Dexter sleeping against his chest. Charlee rested beside Florence, listening to a history that had shaped her life before she was born.
Thirty-three years earlier, Spencer’s father, Augustus Warren, had been building the family company into an empire. In public, he was praised as a visionary. At home, he ruled through humiliation and fear.
Florence had been nineteen when she entered Warren House as a maid.
Augustus noticed her immediately.
“He made me believe I was special,” Florence said. “Then he made me believe everything that happened was my fault.”
When Florence became pregnant, Augustus initially promised to provide an apartment and private education for the child. But Spencer’s mother, Evelyn, discovered the affair. She threatened divorce and public exposure.
Conrad Vale proposed a solution.
Florence would disappear.
The baby would receive modest financial support through anonymous payments.
In exchange, Florence would sign a lifelong confidentiality agreement.
Lydia was born in a county hospital six months before Spencer.
“She was your sister,” Florence told him. “Older by half a year.”
Spencer looked at Charlee. The girl had Lydia’s photograph in her lap.
“Did Lydia know who her father was?”
“Yes. I told her when she turned sixteen. She wanted nothing from him. She only wanted you to know she existed.”
“Why didn’t she contact me directly?”
“She did.”
Spencer’s head lifted.
“She wrote you six letters. Conrad intercepted every one.”
Florence explained that Lydia eventually took a temporary job at the Warren Foundation, hoping proximity would allow her to meet Spencer. She learned quickly that Conrad controlled access to him.
During that job, Lydia discovered irregular payments to Halcyon Fertility Center. At first, she assumed they were charitable grants. Then she found coded patient lists linked to prominent families.
Lydia copied what she could.
“She believed Conrad had been helping your father build a secret catalog of biological heirs,” Florence said.
Nathan Cole, who had joined them, frowned. “For what purpose?”
“Control,” Florence answered. “Augustus believed blood was ownership. He feared board members, rivals, even politicians. If he possessed proof of hidden children or unauthorized embryos, he could destroy families or force them to cooperate.”
Spencer felt sick.
His father had turned genetic material into blackmail decades before the technology became widely understood.
“And after my father died?” he asked.
“Conrad continued.”
Pamela sat in the corner, visibly shaken. “That explains the missing records.”
Florence nodded. “Lydia found your sample number on one transfer list. She believed Conrad intended to create an heir he could control.”
“Why not simply ensure I remained childless?” Spencer asked.
“Because the trust required a Warren heir for certain international holdings. Without one, those assets would be liquidated. Conrad needed a child eventually—but one raised under his authority, not yours.”
Dexter stirred in Spencer’s arms.
The plan became clearer.
Conrad had intended to produce a biological child from Spencer’s samples, conceal the child, and reveal him only after Spencer’s death. As controlling trustee and guardian, Conrad would effectively own Warren Global through the heir.
But Pamela’s unauthorized use of the samples had created Dexter outside Conrad’s control.
Jocelyn had discovered the scheme.
That made both mother and child dangerous.
“What happened to Lydia?” Charlee asked softly.
Florence closed her eyes.
“She stole a ledger from Conrad’s office. Two days later, her car went through a bridge barrier.”
“Was Charlee with her?” Spencer asked.
“No. Charlee was a baby. Lydia left her with me that night because she said she had to meet someone.”
“Who?”
“Grant Lowell.”
Spencer’s chest tightened.
Grant had joined Warren security years later, claiming no prior connection to the family.
According to Florence, Lydia believed Grant was a federal investigator. He promised to protect her if she surrendered the ledger.
Instead, Lydia died.
The ledger disappeared.
Grant later became Spencer’s head of security.
Casey entered the room carrying newly obtained records.
“We found something,” she said. “Grant Lowell is not his legal name.”
She handed Spencer a file.
Grant had been born Gabriel Vale.
Conrad’s son.
The room fell silent.
Conrad had placed his own child inside Warren House to control security, monitor Spencer, and prepare for the succession scheme.
“But Grant may not be the only one involved,” Ruiz said. “The evidence at the cabin was staged too obviously. Someone may be trying to direct us toward Conrad while protecting themselves.”
Pamela began pacing. “Jocelyn once told me there were two men. One frightened her. The other pretended to help.”
“Conrad and Grant,” Nathan suggested.
“Or Grant and someone else,” Spencer replied.
That evening, Spencer moved Florence into Warren House under police protection. The hospital was too exposed, and Charlee refused to be separated from her.
The mansion transformed almost overnight. The east wing became a protected family area. Dexter’s nursery was relocated to a room without service passages. New security personnel monitored every entrance. Detective Ruiz stationed officers on the grounds.
Yet despite the danger, small changes began to soften the house.
Charlee placed drawings on the refrigerator.
Florence requested fresh flowers for the breakfast room.
Dexter’s cries echoed through corridors that had once been silent.
Spencer found himself waking at two in the morning to hold his son, even when the nurse offered to do it. He learned how Dexter curled one hand around his finger while feeding. He learned that Charlee had nightmares unless someone left the hallway light on. He learned that Florence drank tea with honey and could silence a room with one disappointed glance.
For the first time in his life, Warren House contained something resembling a family.
That made Spencer more afraid, not less.
He finally possessed people he could lose.
At midnight, Spencer prepared to meet the caller at the abandoned conservatory. Detective Ruiz insisted on placing a tracking device beneath his collar and officers around the perimeter.
“You are not going alone,” she said.
“The caller demanded it.”
“Kidnappers always do.”
“I need Jocelyn alive.”
“And Dexter needs his father alive.”
The words stopped him.
Charlee appeared at the library door in her pajamas.
“Don’t go.”
Spencer looked at Ruiz, who quietly left them alone.
“I have to help Dexter’s mother.”
“People who leave at night don’t come back.”
“I came back from the fire.”
“You almost didn’t.”
Spencer crouched in front of her. “Listen to me. Being afraid does not mean we abandon someone. It means we make a plan strong enough to return.”
Charlee’s eyes filled with tears. “My mother had a plan.”
He had no answer for that.
She removed his grandfather’s watch, which she had continued wearing, and fastened it around his wrist.
“Then take this.”
Spencer hugged her.
It was awkward at first. He had never learned how to hold a frightened child. But Charlee wrapped her arms around his neck, and instinct took over.
“I will come back,” he whispered.
The old Warren conservatory stood on the northern edge of the estate, abandoned since Evelyn Warren’s death. Broken glass panels reflected the moonlight. Dead vines covered the iron framework.
Spencer entered carrying a briefcase filled with blank paper. Lydia’s real evidence remained with Detective Ruiz.
A single lantern burned in the center.
“Conrad,” Spencer called.
A figure stepped from behind a stone column.
It was Grant.
He looked exhausted, his beard untrimmed, a pistol hanging at his side.
“You shouldn’t have come,” Grant said.
“Where is Jocelyn?”
“Alive, for the moment.”
“Are you working with Conrad?”
Grant laughed bitterly. “I spent my entire life working for him.”
“Did you kill Lydia?”
“No.”
“Did you deliver her to the person who did?”
Grant’s silence was answer enough.
Spencer’s hands curled into fists.
“She trusted you.”
“I was twenty-three. My father told me Lydia was extorting the family. He said she intended to destroy you.”
“So you gave him her location.”
“Yes.”
“And then you took a job protecting me.”
“At first, to watch you. Later…” Grant looked away. “Later, I realized you weren’t like Augustus.”
“Yet you disabled my cameras.”
“My father ordered me to let someone onto the grounds. He said they were retrieving documents from Jocelyn. I didn’t know Dexter was in that bag.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“No. But I’m trying to keep the child alive now.”
Grant revealed that Conrad was preparing to flee the country. Jocelyn was being held beneath an unused medical facility formerly owned by Halcyon. Conrad planned to kill her after obtaining Lydia’s evidence.
“Why tell me?” Spencer asked.
“Because my father discovered I kept a copy of the security footage.”
Grant removed a small drive from his pocket.
“It shows who left Dexter by the dumpsters.”
Spencer reached for it.
A gunshot shattered the lantern.
Grant fell.
Spencer dropped behind a stone planter as bullets struck the iron framework. Police moved in from outside, but the shooter escaped through a hidden maintenance tunnel.
Grant was alive, wounded in the shoulder.
Detective Ruiz recovered the flash drive.
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The footage showed a masked person placing the cardboard box behind the dumpsters. Before leaving, the person turned toward the camera and briefly lifted the mask.
It was Mrs. Mabel.
