Chapter 11 - The Warehouse
Detective Mills did not allow Nathan or Emma into the warehouse.
They waited inside an unmarked van two blocks away while the tactical team entered through three doors at once.
Nathan hated every second.
Emma sat beside him with both hands clenched in her lap.
“You don’t have to forgive me,” she said.
Nathan kept his eyes on the radio.
“This isn’t the time.”
“I know.”
After six minutes, a voice crackled over the speaker.
“One hostage located. Female. Alive.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
Rachel.
Another voice came through.
“No suspects on site.”
Nathan’s eyes opened.
Of course.
Daniel and Victoria had already left.
Rachel emerged wrapped in a blanket, furious more than frightened.
The first thing she did was slap Nathan’s shoulder.
“What the hell took you so long?”
He laughed, then pulled her into a hug.
She held him tightly.
“They wanted the trust,” she whispered. “But that wasn’t all.”
Nathan pulled back.
“What else?”
“They kept asking me where Claire stored the original corporate audit.”
Nathan looked at Mills.
“Corporate audit?”
Rachel nodded. “Daniel thinks Claire hid proof that he stole from Cole Meridian before he was fired.”
Nathan remembered the flash drive.
Mills had copied it at the bank.
“Then why take you?” Emma asked.
Rachel looked at her carefully. “Because they thought I knew where the original paper ledger was.”
“Do you?”
Rachel hesitated.
Nathan saw it.
“You do.”
Rachel exhaled. “Claire gave it to me.”
“Where is it?”
“Not where Daniel thinks.”
Mills cut in. “We need the location now.”
Rachel looked at Nathan. “It’s in the mansion.”
Nathan’s stomach sank.
“Where?”
“In the nursery wall safe.”
The nursery had been locked since Claire died.
Victoria had asked to renovate it three times.
Nathan had always refused.
He suddenly understood why she kept asking.
They raced back to the mansion.
The front gate was open.
One deputy lay unconscious beside the security booth, breathing but bleeding from the forehead.
Nathan ran inside.
“AVA! LILY! CHLOE!”
No answer.
The family room was empty.
A chair was overturned.
Emma sprinted upstairs.
Nathan followed.
The nursery door stood open.
The wall safe had been ripped from behind a framed painting.
Its metal door hung crooked.
The ledger was gone.
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On the carpet lay Chloe’s pink hair ribbon.
And all three girls had disappeared.
