Chapter 4 - Behind the Ballroom Walls
Daniel hit the service corridor at a run.
“Emma!”
Another scream echoed, followed by metal crashing to the floor.
He turned a corner and found a laundry cart tipped sideways near an emergency stairwell.
A small cream shoe lay beside it.
Daniel picked it up.
His daughter’s shoe.
Rachel reached him seconds later.
“Oh God.”
“Call security. Tell them stairwell C.”
He pushed through the heavy fire door.
The stairwell was empty.
Then he heard crying one floor below.
Daniel took the stairs three at a time.
Emma sat on the landing with both arms around her knees.
No man.
No catering jacket.
Just his daughter, terrified and barefoot on one foot.
Daniel dropped beside her.
“Baby, I’m here.”
She threw herself into his chest.
“He said you wanted me to go with him.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see his face?”
She shook her head.
“He had a hat. He said Mommy Vanessa signed papers and I had to go somewhere safe.”
Daniel’s blood went cold.
“What else did he say?”
Emma pulled back.
“He knew about Mom’s necklace.”
Daniel froze.
Emma’s late mother, Sarah, had left her a tiny gold locket before dying three years earlier. Almost nobody knew Daniel kept it in a locked drawer in his home office.
“Did he have it?”
Emma nodded.
“He showed it to me.”
Daniel stood slowly.
Someone had been inside his house.
Someone had opened the locked drawer.
And someone knew enough about Emma to use her dead mother as bait.
Back upstairs, Vanessa waited in the corridor, crying.
Daniel handed Emma to Rachel.
Then he turned to his new wife.
“You have thirty seconds to tell me what that guardianship petition was.”
Vanessa wiped her face.
“My attorney said it would protect the kids if anything happened to you.”
“Which attorney?”
She hesitated.
Daniel already knew he would hate the answer.
“Grant’s attorney,” she whispered.
May you like
Then Grant’s voice came from behind them.
“You should probably hear the rest from me.”
