Chapter 4 - Charlee’s Secret Connection to the Warren Family
“Charlee, push something against the door,” Spencer said.
The girl’s breathing trembled through the phone.
“There’s a chair.”
“Use it.”
He heard scraping.
Dexter began to cry.
Outside the closet, Mabel stopped pretending.
“Open this door now.”
Charlee did not answer.
Mabel struck the wood hard enough to make her scream.
Spencer gripped the steering wheel.
“I’m three minutes away.”
“She’s breaking it.”
“Keep talking to me.”
“What do I say?”
“Tell me about the teddy bear.”
“What?”
“The blue one you bought for Dexter.”
“I didn’t buy it. You did.”
“You chose it.”
“He likes it.”
“How do you know?”
“He stops crying when I put it near him.”
Another удар shook the closet door.
Spencer forced his voice to remain steady.
“Then hold the bear beside him.”
The gates of the mansion appeared ahead. Security guards were clustered outside near the service road, apparently believing the building contained a gas leak.
Spencer drove through without stopping.
Police cars followed.
Inside, he ran toward the nursery.
Mabel had nearly broken the closet lock.
“Step away from the door!” Spencer shouted.
She turned.
The syringe in her hand caught the light.
For one unbearable moment, they stared at each other.
Mabel’s face was not cold or triumphant. It was devastated.
“You weren’t supposed to come back yet.”
Spencer moved between her and the closet.
“Drop it.”
“I can explain.”
“You were at the clinic.”
“Yes.”
“With Everett.”
“Yes.”
“You helped abduct Jocelyn.”
“No.”
“Then tell me what I saw.”
Mabel’s hand shook.
“I was trying to get her out.”
The police entered behind Spencer, weapons raised.
“Put down the syringe!”
Mabel dropped it.
The officers restrained her.
Spencer opened the closet.
Charlee sat on the floor holding Dexter with one arm and the blue teddy bear with the other. Her face was wet with tears, but she had not screamed.
“You came,” she whispered.
Spencer knelt and pulled both children against him.
“I told you I would.”
Charlee clung to his neck.
This time, he did not stiffen.
As officers took Mabel away, she looked back at him.
“The syringe was a sedative for me, not them.”
Spencer ignored her.
At the police station, Mabel requested to speak only with Spencer and Casey present.
“You have ten minutes,” Spencer said when he entered the interrogation room.
Mabel’s wrists were cuffed to the table.
“I deserve your anger.”
“You deserve prison.”
“Possibly.”
“Where is Jocelyn?”
“I don’t know.”
Spencer turned toward the door.
“Wait.”
He stopped.
Mabel inhaled slowly.
“Everett discovered Jocelyn had copied the financial records. He ordered Dr. Voss to keep her at the clinic until she surrendered the drive.”
“And you helped him.”
“I pretended to.”
“You stood beside the van.”
“Because I convinced Everett that Jocelyn had hidden the evidence in the mansion. I told him I could force her to reveal where.”
“Why would he trust you?”
“Because I have spent twenty-eight years making him believe I helped conceal his crimes.”
Spencer stared at her.
“You knew everything.”
“I knew enough.”
“And you stayed silent.”
“To survive.”
“That excuse gets weaker every time someone uses it.”
Mabel accepted the blow.
“After Jocelyn gave birth, Dr. Voss planned to kill her and the baby. I arranged for one of the clinic nurses to remove Dexter.”
“The nurse abandoned him in a trash bag.”
“She was supposed to place him safely at your service entrance with the letter. Everett’s men followed her. She panicked and left him behind the dumpster.”
“And Charlee found him.”
“Yes.”
“Where is the nurse?”
“Dead.”
Casey lowered her eyes.
Spencer’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“What happened to Jocelyn?”
“I helped move her from the clinic before Voss could kill her. The van in the video belonged to Everett, but I changed the destination.”
“To where?”
“A safe house outside Millhaven.”
“Then why don’t you know where she is?”
“Because the safe house was empty when my contact arrived the next morning.”
“Who took her?”
“I believe Dr. Voss found out.”
Spencer paced the room.
“And tonight? Why were you entering the nursery with a syringe?”
“Everett called me. He said he knew Charlee was Conrad’s granddaughter. He ordered me to bring her and Dexter to him.”
“So you planned to obey?”
“I planned to make it look as though I had. The syringe contained a sedative I intended to inject into myself after staging a struggle. I wanted Everett to believe someone else had taken them.”
“That is the worst plan I have ever heard.”
Mabel’s eyes filled with tears.
“I was running out of time.”
“You could have told me.”
“Would you have believed me?”
Spencer opened his mouth, then stopped.
Mabel continued.
“I raised you after your mother died. I watched your father teach you never to trust anyone. By the time you inherited this house, you treated every person in it like an employee or an enemy.”
“I trusted you.”
“No. You depended on me. That isn’t the same thing.”
The truth hurt more because it came from her.
Casey leaned forward.
“Why did Everett arrange the pregnancy?”
“Control of the trust. But there is another reason.”
“What reason?” Spencer asked.
“Conrad’s original succession documents included a morality clause. If Spencer was proven to have knowingly fathered a child through an illegal reproductive procedure involving a biological relative, the corporate board could declare him unfit to manage the family trust.”
Spencer understood.
“Everett planned to expose the child at the right moment.”
“Yes. He would destroy your reputation, remove you from the company, and control Dexter’s inheritance through a court-appointed guardian.”
“Who would serve as guardian?”
Mabel looked at Casey.
“Everett had already prepared documents naming the Warren Foundation.”
Spencer sat down.
This was not merely theft. It was the systematic destruction of every remaining branch of his family.
“Why did you protect him for so long?” he asked.
Mabel stared at her cuffed hands.
“Because Everett is my brother.”
The room fell silent.
Spencer felt as if the floor shifted beneath him.
“My father hired both of you?”
“Yes. Everett was ambitious. I was nineteen and desperate for work.”
“Did you know he framed Florence?”
“I learned years later.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I was ashamed.”
“You let Florence live in poverty. You let Jocelyn grow up without her family.”
“I know.”
“You let me believe I had no one.”
Mabel’s tears fell freely now.
“I know.”
Spencer stood.
“Then help me find Jocelyn.”
Mabel nodded.
“Everett owns an abandoned equestrian estate through a shell company. Conrad used it years ago for private meetings. There are underground service rooms beneath the main stable.”
“Address.”
She gave it to Casey.
Police immediately prepared a search operation.
Spencer returned to the mansion before dawn. Charlee sat at the kitchen table wrapped in a blanket. Dexter slept in a bassinet beside her.
“Is Mabel bad?” Charlee asked.
Spencer poured himself coffee but did not drink it.
“She made serious mistakes.”
“Did she hurt my mom?”
“She says she tried to save her.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I don’t know.”
Charlee looked disappointed.
“You’re supposed to know things.”
“People pay me to look as though I do.”
“That’s silly.”
“Yes.”
She studied him.
“Are you really my uncle?”
“The DNA results aren’t finished.”
“My grandma says your dad was my mom’s dad.”
“Then biologically, yes.”
“What does that make Dexter?”
Spencer sat across from her.
“Technically, he would be your uncle and your cousin.”
Charlee frowned.
“That’s too confusing.”
“I agree.”
“Can he just be my brother?”
Spencer looked at the baby.
“He can be whatever your family decides.”
“Are you our family?”
The question was so simple that it terrified him.
“I’m trying to be.”
Charlee reached across the table.
“Families don’t try. They stay.”
Spencer covered her small hand with his.
“Then I’m staying.”
Later that morning, the paternity results arrived.
Dexter was Spencer’s biological son.
A second genetic test confirmed that Jocelyn was Spencer’s paternal half sister and Charlee was his niece.
Lucas placed the documents on the desk.
“These results could become public.”
“They will.”
“The circumstances will trigger a scandal.”
“I don’t care.”
“The board may ask you to step aside.”
“I don’t care.”
“Shareholders will react.”
“Lucas.”
His attorney stopped.
Spencer’s voice was calm.
“My sister was exploited. My son was treated like property. My niece lived in an abandoned building while my family foundation held hundreds of millions of dollars. I am finished caring what comfortable people think.”
Lucas nodded slowly.
“That may be the first intelligent thing you’ve said in fifteen years.”
Spencer almost smiled.
The police raid on the equestrian estate began at noon.
No one found Jocelyn.
But they discovered medical restraints, bloodstained sheets, forged guardianship documents, and photographs of Charlee taken over several months.
Everett had been watching the girl long before Dexter’s birth.
Inside a locked office, officers found a wall covered with photographs of Spencer, Jocelyn, Charlee, and the baby’s ultrasound scans.
At the center was Conrad Warren’s succession trust.
One photograph had been marked with a red circle.
Charlee standing beside Florence outside their apartment.
Beneath it, Everett had written:
The girl knows where Florence hid the original ledger.
That evening, Spencer showed Florence the photograph.
She closed her eyes.
“He thinks I told Charlee.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Where is the ledger?”
Florence looked toward the child playing on the floor.
“I hid it inside the Warren mansion thirty years ago.”
Spencer stared at her.
“Where?”
“In a place Conrad believed no servant would dare enter.”
Before Florence could explain, every phone in the room began ringing at once.
The mansion’s emergency alarm activated.
A voice came through the intercom.
Everett.
“Spencer, bring Charlee to the old family chapel before midnight.”
Charlee froze.
“If you involve the police,” Everett continued, “Jocelyn Cooper will die before she ever sees her daughter again.”
A live video appeared on the television.
Jocelyn was tied to a chair in a dark room.
Her face was bruised, but she was alive.
Charlee screamed, “Mom!”
Jocelyn lifted her head as though she had heard her.
Everett stepped into view and placed a gun against her temple.
“Bring me the child,” he said. “She is the only person who can lead me to the ledger.”
The screen went black.
Charlee turned to Spencer with tears pouring down her face.
“You said you would bring her home.”
Spencer looked at the clock.
Seven hours remained.
May you like
This time, he would not allow Everett to take another member of his family.
Even if saving Jocelyn meant sacrificing everything his father had left him.
