A Little Girl Returned His Wallet—Then He Saw Her Eyes

Emily reached her daughter first.

She pulled the child behind the stone wall as a second shot punched into the cottage siding.

Richard crawled to the broken window.

"Daniel!"

No answer.

His wheelchair lay on its side in the snow.

A dark streak marked the ground beside it.

Blood.

Claire stumbled through the doorway.

"Jonathan went around the back. He said he saw movement near the trees."

"He went alone?"

"He didn't ask permission. Family tradition."

Another shot cracked.

This one came from the opposite side of the cottage.

Helen grabbed the hunting rifle.

"They're moving us."

Richard understood.

The shots were not meant to hit them.

They were meant to force them away from something.

"The lake," he said.

Emily stared.

"What?"

"The cars are on the road side. The shooters are pushing us toward the lake."

Helen nodded grimly.

"There's an old boathouse with a service tunnel."

Richard looked at her.

"Since when?"

"Since Prohibition. Your grandfather built it. Margaret discovered it years ago."

Richard almost laughed from disbelief.

Another family secret hidden under his property.

Helen opened a trapdoor beneath the kitchen rug.

Cold air rose from darkness.

"Go."

Emily hesitated.

"Daniel and Jonathan are outside."

"I'll find them," Richard said.

"No."

"Take your daughter."

"She's your granddaughter."

The correction hit him.

Richard nodded.

"Take my granddaughter. I'll find them."

Emily stared at him for one long second.

Then she kissed little Emily's hat and handed the child to Claire.

"I'm coming with you."

"Emily—"

"You don't get to order me away anymore."

They went through the rear pantry and slipped outside beneath the covered wood rack.

Snow stung Richard's face.

He saw footprints leading toward the trees.

One set dragged slightly.

Daniel.

They followed.

Thirty yards into the woods, they found Jonathan kneeling beside Daniel behind a fallen pine.

Daniel's shoulder was bleeding.

"It's through-and-through," Jonathan said. "He'll live if we stop the bleeding."

Emily pressed her scarf against the wound.

"Who shot you?"

Daniel grimaced.

"Didn't see. Someone grabbed the drive."

Richard froze.

"The hard drive?"

Daniel nodded.

"They knew exactly where it was."

Everyone looked at Jonathan.

His face hardened.

"Don't."

"You disappeared," Emily said.

"Because I saw the shooter."

"Who?"

Jonathan pointed toward the trees.

A figure lay facedown in the snow.

Richard approached carefully.

It was Miles Kerr.

Blood stained the back of his jacket.

He was alive, barely.

Jonathan had taken his gun.

Miles opened his eyes.

"He... took it."

"Who?" Richard asked.

Miles coughed.

"Voss."

Emily leaned closer.

"Malcolm is here?"

Miles shook his head.

"Not Malcolm."

His breath rattled.

"Voss."

Richard frowned.

"Malcolm Voss."

"No."

Miles looked at Jonathan.

"Evan."

Jonathan went white.

Evan Voss was Malcolm's son.

Richard had not heard the name in years.

Evan had disappeared from Harrington Holdings after a scandal involving insider trading. Malcolm claimed he'd moved to Europe.

"Evan is alive?" Richard asked.

Miles laughed weakly.

"Very."

A branch snapped behind them.

Jonathan raised the gun.

A man stepped from the trees wearing a gray knit cap.

The crescent scar on his chin was no scar at all.

It was a strip of pale medical tape covering a surgical seam.

He removed the cap.

Richard recognized him from photographs buried deep in old annual reports.

Evan Voss.

Older.

Heavier.

Smiling.

Jonathan pressed both hands against Daniel's wound while Emily tore the lining from her coat to make another bandage.

"You learned first aid?" she asked.

"Company safety course."

"Miracles happen."

"I also know how to use a fire extinguisher."

"Try not to build a personality around it."

Daniel laughed, then groaned.

The exchange was absurdly ordinary for four people crouched behind a fallen tree while someone hunted them. Richard realized that family language did not disappear in crisis. It became sharper.

Miles Kerr tried to shift in the snow.

Richard pointed at him.

"Don't move."

Miles gave him a tired smile.

"There he is."

"Who?"

"The man every employee knows."

Richard almost snapped back, then stopped.

"Fine. Please don't move."

"Growth."

Emily glared at Miles.

"Why were you working for Evan?"

"Because he had proof my father ran Daniel off the road. He said if I didn't cooperate, he'd send it to my mother before the police."

"Your father did it."

"I know."

"Then why protect him?"

Miles looked toward the dark trees.

"Because shame makes stupid things feel like loyalty."

Richard glanced at Jonathan.

His son had heard it too.

Daniel's breathing steadied slightly.

"The drive," he said. "If Evan gets it, he still needs the key."

"Unless he already has it," Emily replied.

Richard thought of the altered clocks, Margaret's music box, and the message that had lured them north.

Every clue they believed was secret had somehow drawn another person toward it.

"We have been assuming we are following Margaret's trail," Richard said.

Jonathan looked at him.

"What else would we be following?"

Richard stared into the woods.

"A trail someone else has been watching for twelve years.

Emily checked Daniel's pulse again and looked toward the cottage.

"Claire and Emmy are still inside."

Richard nodded.

"Helen knows the tunnel."

"That sentence would have meant nothing to me yesterday."

"Yesterday was simpler."

"Yesterday was a lie."

Richard accepted that.

Jonathan glanced at him, then toward Emily.

"She's not wrong."

"I'm collecting those today."

Even Emily almost smiled.

The moment vanished when Daniel whispered, "Listen."

Far off through the trees came the low growl of an engine, then silence.

Someone had parked beyond the road where the snow would not show fresh tracks.

Richard felt the pattern settle into place. The shooter had not arrived impulsively. The cottage, the warm coffee, the open door, the route through the woods - all of it had been prepared around their expected behavior.

"We're not being chased," he said.

Jonathan frowned.

"What do you call this?"

"Herded."

Emily looked toward the lake.

The word changed how all of them saw the terrain.

In one hand he held Daniel's hard drive.

In the other, a pistol.

"Family reunion," Evan said. "How sentimental."