Chapter 14 - Behind the Gold Wall
The north exit video was a loop.
Marcus found the splice buried inside a backup server. Lauren and Sean had walked toward the SUV, but the last four seconds repeated. They never actually drove away.
Someone had built a hiding place inside my house.
Nora led us to the old east wing.
“My grandmother worked here when your father was young,” she said. “She told me there were servant passages that were sealed.”
Behind a gold-paneled wall in the music room, Marcus found fresh tool marks.
We opened it.
A narrow corridor ran between the walls.
At the far end, light leaked beneath a steel door.
Marcus raised his weapon.
“Sean?”
A man's voice answered weakly. “Here.”
We entered.
Sean was tied to a chair, bruised but conscious.
Lauren was gone.
On the desk beside him sat a laptop streaming the mansion's interior cameras.
Every room.
Every microphone.
Every conversation.
For months.
Sean looked at his brother. “I'm sorry.”
Marcus cut the restraints. “Save it.”
“Lauren made me record the call. She said if I warned you, she'd trigger something in Lily's room.”
My blood turned cold.
“What thing?”
He nodded toward the laptop.
A diagram was open.
It showed Lily's bedroom ventilation system.
Attached to it was a small canister marked with a chemical code.
Ruiz swore. “Evacuate the house.”
I ran.
No cane.
No brace.
I ran badly, painfully, but I ran.
Lily was in the breakfast room coloring with Nora. I scooped her up and carried her outside while alarms sounded again.
Bomb technicians found the canister thirty minutes later.
It was empty.
A bluff.
Maybe.
Then Marcus called from the hidden room.
“Vincent, you need to see this.”
On Lauren's laptop was a live calendar.
One event remained.
DAY 181 - BOARD TRANSFER - 10:00 A.M.
Location: Hale Industries.
Underneath was a note:
If Vincent appears, use Plan B.
I clicked the attached file.
May you like
Plan B had one sentence.
Make him look unstable in front of everyone.
