Chapter 4 - The Yellow Beads
The hospital locked every exit.
Security footage showed Harper sitting in a wheelchair.
A woman in blue scrubs pushed her through a staff corridor.
The woman wore a mask and glasses.
Her identification badge belonged to a nurse who was home with the flu.
Harper appeared calm.
She believed she was being taken to another room.
The wheelchair entered a service elevator.
The camera feed disappeared.
Three minutes later, a white medical van left the underground garage.
Mia tried to climb out of bed when Serena told her.
Pain from her ribs forced her back down.
“That is my baby.”
“We are going to find her,” Serena said.
“You do not know Nathan.”
“He does not think like other people.”
“He does not see a child.”
“He sees something he can trade.”
Dominic entered the room.
Mia looked at him with fury.
“This is your fault.”
“Yes.”
“You trusted that man.”
“Yes.”
“You let Claire live near my daughter.”
“Yes.”
“You did not notice I was gone.”
Dominic did not defend himself.
Every accusation was deserved.
“I will bring Harper back.”
Mia’s eyes filled with tears.
“You do not get to promise me what you cannot control.”
“No.”
“But I can promise that nothing in my company, reputation, or fortune matters more than finding her.”
Mia stared at him.
Then she pointed toward the torn stuffed rabbit on the chair.
“Check the ears.”
Dominic picked it up.
“What am I looking for?”
“Yellow beads.”
“When Harper is afraid, she leaves them behind.”
“I taught her the game after she got lost in a department store.”
“She hides extra beads in Bunny’s ears.”
Dominic examined the toy.
Six small beads were sewn into one ear.
Four remained.
Police searched the service elevator.
One yellow bead lay beneath the wheelchair ramp.
A second was found near the garage exit.
Harper had understood she was in danger.
She had left a trail.
Traffic cameras tracked the medical van north.
Nathan had ordered Dominic to travel south toward the textile mill.
The meeting location was a trap.
Lucas searched Vale properties along the northern route.
One location stood out.
An abandoned summer camp once funded by Elena’s foundation.
Nathan supervised its closure two years earlier.
Federal agents approached the camp from three directions.
The medical van sat near the dining lodge.
Harper’s shoes were inside.
A yellow bead rested on the driver’s seat.
Thermal cameras detected movement in the main cabin.
Three adults.
One smaller figure.
Serena remained on the tactical radio.
“Team one entering.”
Dominic stood beside her inside the mobile command vehicle.
Mia listened through a secure hospital connection.
A gunshot sounded over the radio.
Then another.
The transmission broke apart.
Serena tried to reach the team.
No answer.
Dominic’s phone rang.
Nathan appeared on video.
He was standing somewhere dark.
“You chose the wrong property.”
A second image opened.
Harper sat on the floor of a wooden room.
Claire stood behind her.
A knife rested against the child’s shoulder.
Harper was crying silently.
Nathan smiled.
“The camp was empty before your agents arrived.”
“You have forty minutes left.”
Dominic studied the background.
A stained-glass window showed a white bird flying over blue water.
Mia saw it through the video call.
“The old boathouse.”
Dominic looked toward her screen.
“What boathouse?”
“Elena’s foundation owned one near the river.”
“It was moved after a flood.”
Lucas remembered the property.
Nathan’s private investment company had purchased the structure during the relocation.
It now stood at an abandoned marina twenty miles south.
Nathan had used the camp’s electrical system to send the video.
Another false trail.
Dominic turned toward Serena.
“I am going in.”
“No.”
“He demanded me.”
“He wants the files.”
“He wants you dead.”
“Then use me to make him stop watching every other direction.”
Serena looked toward the frozen image of Harper.
Finally, she nodded.
“You follow every instruction.”
“You do not improvise.”
Dominic thought about the daughter he had once failed to protect.
“I already improvised for seventeen years.”
May you like
“That is how Nathan won.”
“Tonight, I listen.”
