Chapter 5 - THE PRICE OF SILENCE
Nora stared at the photograph until the screen blurred.
Claire lived in Philadelphia.
She had no connection to the Vale estate.
She had no idea why Nora had accepted the housekeeping position.
“How did they find her?”
Adrian took the phone.
The message had been sent through an encrypted service.
“Someone has been watching you.”
A third message appeared.
“Bring the rabbit to Pier 19 before midnight.”
Nora looked at the cream-colored rabbit resting beside Lily in the vehicle.
“They think the evidence is still inside.”
Adrian ordered the driver to turn around.
Nora grabbed his arm.
“No.”
“My daughter is in this car.”
“And my sister will die if we return without a plan.”
Adrian’s voice lowered.
“I will not use Lily as bait.”
“I am not asking you to.”
Nora examined the photograph again.
A round clock hung on the wall behind Claire.
A yellow freight label was attached to a steel beam.
Nora enlarged the image.
The label carried the logo of Vale Maritime Storage.
Adrian recognized it.
Pier 19 belonged to one of his companies.
The property had been scheduled for demolition.
Only Marcus and senior corporate officers still had access.
Adrian contacted a former federal investigator named Daniel Cross.
Daniel had worked security cases for the Vale family for more than a decade.
He instructed Adrian not to alert local officers until he confirmed Claire’s location.
“The kidnappers may have someone inside the department.”
Adrian looked at Nora.
“That explains how Isabelle’s accident report disappeared.”
Nora’s head snapped up.
“What accident report?”
Adrian had requested the full report two years after Isabelle’s death.
The file had been marked incomplete.
The vehicle’s onboard computer had never been recovered.
Daniel arrived at the estate shortly after nightfall.
He examined the photograph and identified the room as an abandoned customs office near Pier 19.
“We enter through the river side.”
Nora insisted on going.
Adrian refused.
She stared at him.
“I have spent six months pretending not to understand what Celeste and Marcus were doing.”
“I cleaned their rooms.”
“I copied their schedules.”
“I listened while they planned around me.”
“They still believe I am invisible.”
“That makes me the only person they will underestimate.”
Daniel agreed.
At eleven thirty, they approached the pier in an unmarked van.
Through a warehouse window, Nora saw Claire tied to the chair.
A masked man stood beside her.
Another figure stepped from the shadows.
May you like
It was Dr. Samuel Warren.
The same doctor who had just treated Lily.
