Chapter 3 - SECRETS BENEATH THE FLOORBOARDS
The estate was a fortress disguised as a manor. High stone walls, motion-tracking thermal cameras, and a private security force numbering in the dozens ensured that nothing entered or left without my explicit knowledge.
Yet, as Dr. Evelyn Vance, our family physician, stepped out of the guest suite an hour later, the look on her face told me that the outside world had already inflicted horrors upon little Emma that no wall could keep out.
“She’s severely malnourished, Mr. Blackwell,” Dr. Vance said quietly, closing her medical clipboard in the softly lit hallway outside the bedroom. Lily was inside, sitting beside Emma while a nurse administered a warm IV drip and spoon-fed her a nutrient-rich broth. “She’s at least two years behind on expected growth metrics. There are signs of chronic neglect—untreated vitamin deficiencies, minor fractures in her left wrist that healed improperly without a cast, and psychological trauma consistent with prolonged isolation.”
My hands curled into fists inside my pockets, my fingernails biting into my palms. “Is she going to recover physically?”
“Yes, the children are remarkably resilient,” Dr. Vance assured me, though her expression remained grim. “Nutrient therapy and rest will do wonders over the next few weeks. But Mr. Blackwell... there is something else. When she woke up for a moment while I was checking her vitals, she started screaming. She kept repeating one phrase over and over: ‘Don’t let them see the red door.’”
The words hung in the sterile hallway air like a shroud.
“The red door,” I repeated.
“I don’t know what it means,” Dr. Vance sighed. “It might be a room, a building, or a hallucination born from fever and fear. But she needs specialized pediatric psychological care immediately.”
“Arrange it,” I said curtly. “Bring in the absolute best trauma specialists in the country. Cost is not a factor.”
Dr. Vance nodded and excused herself. I pushed open the heavy mahogany door to the guest suite.
The room was bathed in the warm, golden glow of bedside lamps. Emma was nestled deep beneath crisp white goose-down comforters, looking vanishingly small against the oversized bed. Lily was curled up in an armchair right beside her, holding Emma’s uninjured hand, chattering happily about a cartoon she liked.
Seeing Emma here—safe, warm, surrounded by luxury—felt surreal. But it also brought a crushing weight of dread. If Grace was her mother, where was Grace now? And who was ‘Aunt Karen’?
My phone buzzed sharply in my pocket. I stepped out onto the private balcony overlooking the manicured gardens, shielded by the crisp autumn night air, and answered.
“Speak, Viktor.”
“Boss,” Viktor’s voice came through the encrypted channel, crisp and urgent. “We ran facial recognition on the traffic cameras around Lincoln Park from this morning. We found the vehicle that dropped the child off.”
My grip on the phone tightened. “What kind of vehicle?”
“A matte-black Ford Transit van with obscured plates. But we tracked its transit using our private toll-tag interceptors. It didn’t go far. It drove straight out to an abandoned industrial park on the south side of the city—near the old rail yards.”
“Did you send a team?”
“We’re already on site,” Viktor replied grimly. “The warehouse is registered to a shell corporation tied to a real estate holding firm. But Boss... that holding firm? It’s a subsidiary of Sterling Industries.”
My blood ran instantly cold. Sterling Industries. Richard Sterling. One of my oldest, most ruthless corporate rivals, a man whose family had spent decades trying to dismantle the Blackwell shipping empire through hostile takeovers, proxy wars, and corporate espionage.
“Sterling,” I whispered, the name tasting like ash in my mouth.
“There’s more,” Viktor added, his tone dropping an octave. “We breached the warehouse. It’s mostly empty, except for a makeshift living quarters in the back office. And... Boss, we found a workstation. The computer screens were still warm. They weren't just monitoring the child. They were monitoring us.”
The pieces of the puzzle began to slam together with terrifying force, forming a picture so dark and calculated that it took my breath away.
“They didn't just abandon Emma in the park by accident,” I realized aloud, the horrifying truth dawning on me. “They left her there on purpose. They wanted me to find her.”
“Why would Sterling do that?” Viktor asked.
May you like
“Because Sterling doesn't just want to ruin me in the stock market anymore,” I said, my voice dropping to a lethal, quiet register. “He wants to tear my family apart from the inside out. And to do that... he had to use the ghost of my past.”
---
