Chapter 4 - Four Minutes in the Dark

Lily screamed from the living room.

Grace ran toward the sound despite her injured shoulder.

"Lily!"

Nathan grabbed his phone and switched on the flashlight. "Stay behind me."

The emergency generator should have started within five seconds.

It didn't.

"The generator's been cut," Nathan said.

Grace's breath caught. "She planned this."

A crash came from the foyer.

Nathan reached the living room first. Lily stood beside the sofa, crying but unharmed. The back door was open.

Victoria was gone.

So was the photograph.

Grace checked Lily's pockets. "She took it."

Nathan called estate security. No response.

Then he remembered the box.

He sprinted back to the study.

The hidden compartment was still empty, but on the floor beneath it lay something he had missed in the darkness: a torn corner of a manila envelope.

Two typed words remained.

ASHFORD HOLDINGS.

Nathan felt cold.

Victoria's father, Richard Ashford, had been his father's closest business partner for more than twenty years.

Grace saw the name. "That's why Ethan was scared."

"Scared of what?"

"Two days before he died, he called me from this house. He said he'd found proof that money was being moved out of one of the Cole charitable trusts. Millions. He said the transfer approvals carried Ashford signatures."

Nathan shook his head. "My father would have known."

Grace looked at him carefully. "Maybe he did."

The generator finally coughed to life.

Lights flickered on.

Nathan's phone rang.

His mother.

He answered. "Mom?"

Margaret Cole did not say hello.

"Nathan, listen to me. Victoria just called. She says Grace Miller is in your house."

Nathan glanced at Grace.

"She is."

A long silence.

Then Margaret whispered, "Get Lily out of there. Now."

Nathan's spine stiffened.

"How do you know Lily's name?"

Silence again.

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When Margaret spoke, her voice was breaking.

"Because I knew Ethan had a daughter before he died."