Chapter 3 - THE TORN TICKET
The dining room descended into absolute chaos.
Ethan pulled his phone from his pocket, his hands shaking so violently he could barely dial the number for the Geneva academy. When the headmaster finally answered, the color rushed out of Ethan's face.
"He's gone," Ethan whispered, dropping the phone. "The school says his mother picked him up forty-eight hours ago. They thought it was Claire."
I looked at Vanessa. She was huddled in the corner, surrounded by Ethan's guards, mascara running down her face in thick black streaks.
Ethan crossed the room in three strides. He didn't hit her. He didn't have to. The sheer, predatory menace radiating from him made Vanessa shrink against the expensive wallpaper.
"Where is my son?" Ethan demanded, his voice a low, terrifying growl.
"Marcus took him!" she sobbed hysterically. "Marcus said he needed the boy as leverage to force you to sign over the waterfront shipping routes! I didn't know he killed your father, Ethan, I swear!"
"You handed a five-year-old boy to a murderer," Claire wept from the floor, clutching my apron for support. "You monster."
I knelt beside Claire, holding her cold, trembling hand. I looked at Vanessa's discarded evening clutch lying on the floor amid the shattered glass. The clasp had broken open when the table flipped.
Something yellow caught my eye.
I reached over and pulled a piece of torn, heavy cardstock from the silk lining.
"Mr. Blackwell," I said quietly, standing up.
Ethan turned, his chest heaving.
I handed him the torn ticket. "This is a private charter train ticket. It's dated for tonight. Leaving out of the old North Station."
Ethan snatched it from my hand. He looked at the destination printed on the stub, and his brow furrowed in deep confusion.
"Blackwood Ridge," Ethan read aloud.
He looked at Claire. "Why would Marcus take our son to my father's abandoned hunting lodge? There's nothing up there but snow and timber."
"He's not going for the timber," Claire whispered, leaning against me. "While I was locked in the dark, I heard them arguing. Marcus was furious. He told Vanessa he needed the boy to open the lock."
"What lock?" Ethan asked.
I looked down at the silver lighter in Ethan's hand. I had polished enough antique silver for wealthy families to recognize a hidden mechanism when I saw one.
"Sir," I said, pointing to the bottom of the lighter. "May I?"
Ethan handed it to me. I pressed my thumb against the small engraving of the Blackwell crest and twisted the base counter-clockwise. With a soft click, the bottom of the lighter popped open.
Inside wasn't a flint or lighter fluid.
It was a small, intricately carved brass key.
Ethan stared at the tiny object, the puzzle pieces clicking together with horrifying clarity.
"The grandfather clock," Ethan breathed. "My father had a custom safe built into the grandfather clock at the lodge. He told me the key was lost years ago."
"Marcus didn't just want the shipping routes," Claire said, her voice trembling. "He wants whatever your father hid in that clock. And he needs Leo's fingerprints to bypass the secondary biometric lock."
Ethan turned to his head of security. "Get the cars. We're going to Blackwood Ridge."
He turned to look at me. "Lucy. Stay here with Claire."
May you like
"No," Claire said, her grip tightening on my arm. She looked at me with desperate, pleading eyes. "Lucy believed me. She didn't look away. I need her with me."
Ethan didn't argue. He nodded once.
