Chapter 5 - The Traitor Behind the Nursery Door
Spencer watched the footage three times.
Each viewing hurt more than the last.
Mrs. Mabel had raised him after his mother died. She had sat beside his hospital bed following the surgery that left him sterile. She had defended him against Augustus, hidden his childhood injuries from the press, and remained at Warren House after every other familiar face disappeared.
Now the screen showed her carrying Dexter toward the dumpsters.
“She saved him in the nursery,” Casey said. “Why would she abandon him and then protect him?”
“Because the video is incomplete,” Detective Ruiz replied.
Grant, receiving treatment under police guard, confirmed that Conrad had ordered him to disable the cameras for precisely twelve minutes. Grant secretly restored one feed because he no longer trusted his father.
The footage began with Mrs. Mabel already holding the box.
There was no record of how she acquired Dexter.
Spencer returned to Warren House and found Mabel seated in the kitchen with Florence. Two officers stood nearby.
Mabel looked at his face and understood immediately.
“You saw it.”
“Tell me the truth.”
Florence reached for Mabel’s hand, but Mabel withdrew it.
“Jocelyn came to me before dawn,” she said. “She was bleeding and terrified. She had escaped from two men near the old clinic. She begged me to bring Dexter inside, but we saw Grant’s vehicle approaching.”
“So you placed him behind the dumpsters?”
“I hid him where Charlee would find him.”
Spencer stared at her.
“You used a seven-year-old child.”
“I trusted Charlee more than anyone inside this house.”
“Why?”
“Because Lydia had prepared her.”
Florence looked startled. “What do you mean?”
Mabel explained that she had secretly known Lydia for years. After Augustus dismissed Florence, Mabel helped send money and letters. Later, when Lydia attempted to contact Spencer, Mabel tried to deliver one of the letters.
Conrad discovered it.
He threatened to have Mabel arrested for theft and ensure Lydia lost custody of Charlee.
From then on, Mabel worked quietly, gathering information while pretending loyalty.
“Lydia knew she might be killed,” Mabel said. “She taught Charlee how to reach the estate through the damaged wall. She told her that if a woman named Jocelyn ever needed help, Charlee should find the man who shared Lydia’s eyes.”
“Why didn’t you simply open the gate?” Spencer demanded.
“Grant controlled the gatehouse. Conrad’s men were searching vehicles. If I carried Dexter through the mansion, they would see me. The dumpsters were outside the main camera angle after Grant disabled the system.”
“But the baby was inside a trash bag.”
“To shield him from the rain. It was open at the top when I left him. Someone tied it after I walked away.”
The room chilled.
Charlee had said the bag was loosely tied.
Someone had followed Mabel and tried to turn a rescue into a murder.
“Where is Jocelyn?” Spencer asked.
“I don’t know. She ran back toward the woods to draw them away from the baby.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know whether Grant had corrupted you, too.”
The statement cut deeply, but Spencer understood. His father’s shadow had made trust impossible for everyone.
Detective Ruiz brought Mabel in for formal questioning but did not arrest her. Her story matched parts of the recovered footage and Jocelyn’s journal.
Grant eventually disclosed the location of the abandoned Halcyon medical facility. Police prepared a raid, but Spencer feared Conrad had already moved Jocelyn.
Then Pamela noticed a phrase hidden in Jocelyn’s journal.
When the roses freeze, follow Evelyn’s song.
Spencer recognized it as a reference to his mother’s old conservatory and the melody played by Lydia’s music box. The music box was not merely a container.
Its tune encoded coordinates.
Nathan contacted a sound analyst who converted the note sequence into numbers. They pointed to a storage compound near the river, owned through one of Conrad’s shell companies.
Ruiz organized a tactical operation.
This time Spencer was forbidden from joining.
He remained at Warren House with Dexter, Charlee, Florence, and Mabel, who had been released pending further investigation. The waiting was unbearable.
At 2:17 a.m., Ruiz called.
They had found Jocelyn alive.
She was severely dehydrated, sedated, and restrained inside a hidden room beneath the warehouse. Conrad was not there.
Three guards were arrested.
One identified the person who had hired them.
Not Conrad.
Grant.
Spencer looked toward the guest room where Grant was supposedly recovering under police protection.
Ruiz continued. “The guard claims Grant planned the kidnapping. He says Conrad wanted Jocelyn kept alive, but Grant ordered them to kill her after retrieving the evidence.”
“That makes no sense. Grant gave us the location.”
“Unless he knew we were closing in and wanted to control the story.”
Spencer remembered the staged cuff link, the convenient flash drive, and Grant’s claim that he had begun resisting his father.
Perhaps Grant was not a guilty son seeking redemption.
Perhaps he was the architect attempting to frame Conrad.
An alarm sounded from the east wing.
Spencer ran upstairs.
The nursery was empty.
Dexter’s crib stood beside an open window. The nurse lay unconscious on the carpet. Charlee was missing too.
On the pillow was Spencer’s grandfather’s watch.
A phone began ringing inside the crib.
Spencer answered.
Grant’s voice said, “Bring the evidence to the river warehouse. No police this time. I have both children.”
Spencer’s vision narrowed.
“You touch either of them—”
“I already spent thirty years watching your family take everything from mine. My father served Augustus, and Augustus treated him like a dog. Then you inherited the empire while I inherited secrets and orders.”
“You’re Conrad’s biological son.”
“I’m also a Warren.”
Spencer froze.
Grant laughed softly.
“Did Florence never tell you? Augustus slept with more than one woman in that house.”
Conrad had raised Grant as his own, but genetic records uncovered through Halcyon showed that Augustus Warren was Grant’s biological father.
Grant was Spencer’s half-brother.
And under a hidden amendment to the family trust, the oldest verified male heir of Augustus could challenge Spencer’s control.
“You don’t need Dexter,” Spencer said. “You have a claim.”
“Not while you and your son live.”
The call ended.
Spencer turned toward Mrs. Mabel, who stood behind him holding the nursery doorway.
“He used the service tunnel,” she whispered.
“The one you said had been sealed.”
“It was sealed. Someone opened it from inside.”
Florence appeared in the hall.
Her face was white.
“Charlee knows those tunnels,” she said. “Lydia taught her the layout from old blueprints.”
Spencer understood.
Charlee had not simply been taken.
She might be leaving a trail.
Inside the tunnel, they found the first sign: a pink ribbon tied around a pipe.
Farther down, a wooden block from Dexter’s toy train lay beside the wall.
Charlee was guiding them toward Grant.
May you like
Spencer called Ruiz.
Then he entered the darkness beneath Warren House to bring his family home.
