Chapter 4 - Someone Wanted Her Gone
"Nobody move."
Adrian's voice cut through the darkness.
Marcus activated the flashlight on his phone.
Daniel did the same.
Clara clutched Leo against her chest.
Eva pulled Rose closer.
Adrian looked toward the stairs.
"Backup power?"
Marcus checked his phone.
"Disabled."
"From inside?"
"Has to be."
Adrian's gaze moved across every face.
Someone in Blackthorne House had just cut the power.
Someone had photographed Clara from inside the nursery.
Someone wanted Elena's ledger.
Adrian took Leo from Clara.
"Stay with Eva."
"No."
He looked at her.
"No?"
"You don't know who is upstairs."
"Exactly."
"And you're carrying a newborn."
Adrian stopped.
She was right.
He hated that.
He handed Leo back.
"Marcus."
"With you."
Daniel stood.
"So am I."
"No."
"He's my nephew."
"And your name is in Elena's warning."
Daniel's face tightened.
"I'm still your brother."
"Tonight that doesn't mean much."
Adrian and Marcus climbed the stairs.
The hallway was dark.
One door stood open.
Elena's dressing room.
Adrian approached.
His pulse changed.
He had avoided that room since she died.
Now the door was wide.
Inside, drawers had been emptied.
Clothes scattered.
Jewelry boxes opened.
Marcus shone his flashlight toward the vanity.
"Someone searched it."
"For the ledger."
"They don't know we already found it."
Adrian stepped over a fallen dress.
Elena's perfume still lingered faintly.
For one second he couldn't move.
Then Marcus said, "Adrian."
He pointed at the mirror.
Four words had been written across it in lipstick.
SHE SHOULD HAVE LISTENED.
Adrian stared.
His hands curled into fists.
Marcus examined the room.
"No forced entry."
"Someone had access."
"Yes."
Adrian looked at the ceiling camera.
Its indicator was dark.
"Get the system back."
"I'm working on it."
They heard footsteps downstairs.
Adrian moved quickly.
Clara stood near the front hall.
A man in a maintenance uniform had appeared from the service corridor.
Marcus raised his weapon.
"Hands."
The man froze.
"I work here."
"No, you don't," Clara said.
Everyone looked at her.
She pointed.
"His shoes."
Adrian glanced down.
The uniform was correct.
The badge looked correct.
But the shoes were polished black leather.
Blackthorne maintenance staff wore gray work boots.
The man reached toward his jacket.
Marcus was faster.
He drove him against the wall and disarmed him.
A small pistol fell to the floor.
Adrian approached.
"Who sent you?"
The man stayed silent.
Marcus searched him.
Phone.
Knife.
Master key card.
And a photograph.
Clara's photograph.
The same one sent minutes earlier.
Adrian took the man's phone.
Recent outgoing call.
SAMUEL C.
He looked at Marcus.
"Find Cross."
Marcus made the call.
No answer.
Adrian crouched before the intruder.
"What were you supposed to do?"
Silence.
Adrian looked toward Clara.
The man's eyes followed.
That was enough.
Adrian's expression became deadly.
"You were here for her."
The intruder said nothing.
Adrian stood.
"Marcus."
"I'll handle him."
Clara immediately said, "No."
Adrian looked at her.
"No?"
"Don't kill him."
The intruder's face changed.
Adrian noticed.
"So you do know who I am."
Clara stepped closer.
"If you kill him, we lose the person who can tell us who ordered this."
Marcus nodded reluctantly.
"She's right."
Adrian stared at Clara.
"You keep doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Being right at inconvenient times."
"Someone has to."
Hours later, the power returned.
The intruder finally talked.
His name was Owen Pike.
Samuel Cross had hired him.
The order had been simple.
Retrieve the blue ledger.
If anyone interfered, frighten them.
If Clara Bennett refused to leave the house by morning, remove her permanently.
Adrian stood across from Pike.
"Why Clara?"
"I don't know."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"He said she was a problem."
"Why?"
"I swear, I don't know."
"What exactly did Cross say?"
Pike hesitated.
Adrian leaned closer.
"What did he say?"
"He said, 'The widow chose the wrong woman.'"
Adrian went still.
Elena.
The widow.
Elena had chosen Clara.
Not by accident.
Not simply because Clara had heard Leo crying.
She had chosen her before she died.
Adrian found Clara in the kitchen just after sunrise.
She sat at the table feeding Leo.
Her hands were steady.
Her face was not.
"You should leave."
She looked up.
"Excuse me?"
"You're a target."
"So I leave and make myself easier to find?"
"I'll send security."
"I don't want security."
"That isn't optional."
"Then neither is staying."
Adrian stared.
"You don't take orders well."
"I work for you. I don't belong to you."
The words hit something sensitive.
Adrian lowered his voice.
"Someone came into my house to kill you."
"To scare me."
"He had a gun."
"People usually don't bring guns to scare babies."
Adrian's jaw tightened.
Clara softened.
"Sorry."
"No."
She looked at him.
"You're scared."
"I'm not."
"You are."
"Clara."
"You keep staring at Leo every ten seconds to make sure he's breathing."
Adrian looked away.
She was right again.
"I couldn't save Elena."
"You don't know that."
"I wasn't there."
"She told you not to be."
"I should have ignored her."
"Then you'd be blaming yourself for something else."
He looked at Clara.
"How do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Speak to me as if I'm normal."
"You are."
He almost laughed.
"No."
"You're a father who hasn't slept in a week and keeps pretending grief is an operational problem."
That time he actually laughed.
Once.
Short and shocked.
Clara stared.
"What?"
"I didn't think you could."
"Neither did I."
Leo finished the bottle.
Clara handed him to Adrian.
"Burp him."
Adrian sighed.
"I have people for this."
"No, you have arms."
He took Leo.
Minutes later, the baby burped loudly against Adrian's shoulder.
Clara smiled.
"Congratulations."
"For what?"
"Your greatest success this week."
Adrian looked offended.
Then Leo spit up on his black waistcoat.
Clara covered her mouth.
"Don't."
She failed.
She laughed.
Adrian stared at the milk on his vest.
Then at her.
Something changed in the kitchen.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Something more dangerous.
Warmth.
Later that afternoon, Marcus found Samuel Cross's office empty.
Computers wiped.
Safe cleared.
Security footage showed Cross leaving town six hours after Elena died.
But investigators found something he had missed.
A storage locker receipt.
Unit 317.
Adrian went with Marcus.
Inside were boxes.
Financial records.
Old newspapers.
Photographs of Eva.
Photographs of Elena.
Photographs of Adrian.
Then Clara.
Years before she had worked at Blackthorne.
Clara at seventeen outside a small apartment building.
Clara at nineteen entering a hospital.
Clara at twenty-three attending a funeral.
Dozens of photographs.
Adrian stared.
"Why was Cross watching her?"
Marcus opened another box.
Inside was a birth certificate.
CLARA ROSE BENNETT.
Mother: Margaret Bennett.
Father: blank.
Attached was an old photograph.
A much younger Augustus Vale stood beside Margaret Bennett.
Adrian stared at it.
Marcus whispered, "No."
Adrian looked at Clara's birth date.
Twenty-eight years earlier.
Then Augustus's travel records.
Same city.
Same year.
He felt sick.
"She could be..."
Marcus did not finish.
Adrian did.
"My sister."
That evening, Adrian returned to Blackthorne with the documents.
Clara met him in the library.
"You found something."
He could not decide how to say it.
There was no good way.
He handed her the photograph.
She stared.
"That's my mother."
"Yes."
"Who is the man?"
Adrian's throat tightened.
"My father."
Clara looked up.
"What?"
Before Adrian could continue, the library phone rang.
Only one internal extension appeared on the display.
ELENA'S ROOM.
Everyone stared.
Adrian answered.
No one spoke at first.
Then a woman's recorded voice whispered through the receiver.
It was Elena.
"Adrian, if you're hearing this, Clara has learned who her father was."
Clara's face went white.
May you like
The recording continued.
"And if Samuel Cross is still alive, he will come for both of you before sunrise..."
