Chapter 13 - The Ballroom Trap
Jack did not debate the threat.
He called Dana.
“Evacuate. Now.”
Within seconds, Sentinel guards moved through the mansion directing staff toward the front lawn. Deputies at the east gate finally gained access after Dana manually killed the corrupted control system.
Jack and Claire hurried back through the passage.
In the foyer, Charles refused to leave without Margaret.
“She is my wife,” he said.
“She also ran a secret surveillance room,” Claire replied.
Charles looked twenty years older.
“That doesn’t mean I leave her in a fire.”
Jack understood that kind of loyalty. He also knew loyalty could become a rope around your neck.
“We find her on the way out,” he said.
They spread through the first floor with deputies.
A fire alarm began to chirp.
Not ring.
Chirp.
System fault.
Dana looked at the panel. “Alarm network is disabled.”
“Manual pull stations?” Jack asked.
“Still work locally.”
Then the ballroom doors slammed shut.
Claire was inside.
“Dad!”
Jack hit the door.
Locked.
Through the glass inset, he saw Claire turn toward the far side of the ballroom.
Ethan stood near the terrace doors.
He had slipped away during the evacuation.
“Claire,” he said, holding up both hands. “Just listen to me.”
She backed away.
Jack pounded the glass. “Open the door!”
Ethan ignored him.
“My mother set this up,” Ethan said. “The cameras. The documents. All of it.”
Claire stared at him. “You were on the recordings.”
“I knew about the power of attorney. I did not know she forged it.”
“You dragged me across the floor.”
His face twisted. “Because you were going to destroy everything.”
“That sentence is not helping you.”
Jack almost felt pride through the fear.
Claire kept moving sideways toward the manual alarm pull.
Ethan saw it.
“Don’t.”
She pulled it.
A mechanical bell exploded through the ballroom.
At the same moment, every set of curtains along the west wall dropped from the ceiling.
One of them hit a candle display.
Flame climbed the fabric.
Ethan looked up in horror.
“I didn’t do that.”
May you like
Claire stared at the growing fire.
Then the terrace doors locked with a heavy electronic click.
