Chapter 5 - Eleven Minutes

I don't remember running down the stairs.

I remember the taste of blood where I'd bitten my tongue. I remember Owen shouting into his radio. I remember Vanessa crying my name from somewhere behind me.

"Close every gate!" I yelled.

"They're already closed," Owen said.

"Then she's on the property."

We searched the guest wing, garage, gardens, tennis court, storage building.

Nothing.

Marcus arrived twenty minutes later in an old gray sedan. He took one look at my face and stopped asking questions.

"Show me where she disappeared."

He examined the broken office window.

"Glass is outside," he said.

I stared at him.

"So?"

"So the window was broken from inside."

Someone had staged the kidnapping.

We checked Sophie's bedroom.

Her favorite sneakers were missing. So was her backpack.

"She walked out," Marcus said. "Or someone convinced her to."

Vanessa stood in the doorway. "She wouldn't leave with a stranger."

Marcus looked at her. "Who said it was a stranger?"

Vanessa went silent.

Owen entered holding a tablet.

"I found a local backup. Most of the footage is gone, but the smart-home system kept door logs."

He turned the screen toward me.

At 2:17 p.m., the service hallway door opened.

At 2:28, it closed.

Eleven minutes.

"Who used it?" I asked.

"No badge. Manual override."

Marcus crouched beside the hallway panel and removed the faceplate.

"Old houses have old habits," he said. "People upgrade cameras and forget the wiring."

He connected a small reader.

A thumbnail appeared.

Sophie walking down the service hall.

Holding someone's hand.

The image was grainy, but the woman beside her had dark hair and a familiar profile.

My knees nearly gave out.

"Claire."

Vanessa whispered, "Oh my God."

Then the next frame loaded.

Claire was looking directly at the hidden camera.

She raised one finger to her lips.

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Marcus asked the staff to remain in the dining room while he worked. One by one, they gave versions of the same answer: Sophie had been withdrawn, Vanessa had been attentive, nobody had seen anything unusual. The sameness bothered him. 'People remember differently,' he told me. 'When everyone remembers the same sentence, somebody taught it to them.'

And behind her, Daniel stepped into view.