Chapter 3 - The Gold Locket
“Your son?” Margaret repeated, the words tasting like ash in her mouth.
The blowtorch ripped through the final hinge of the cellar door. The heavy steel crashed to the floor, and the boots of heavily armed men echoed into the dining room.
“Move!” Margaret shoved her daughter toward the kitchen. “Explain while we run!”
Rachel slammed the heavy pantry doors shut behind them, frantically throwing the industrial deadbolt. She pushed aside a rack of hanging cured meats to reveal a rusted iron grate set into the brick wall.
As the waitress struggled to pull the heavy grate open, Margaret turned to Grace in the dim light of the pantry.
“You were held captive for eleven years,” Margaret said, her chest heaving. “You had a child?”
Tears streamed down Grace’s soot-stained face. “Two years after the fire. One of Daniel’s guards... he was cruel, Mom. When the baby was born, Daniel took him away. He told me the boy died. He told me I was entirely alone.”
Vanessa stepped closer, keeping her gun aimed at the pantry door. “Daniel lied. I saw the financial records. He’s been paying Victor ten thousand dollars a month to keep the boy hidden at a private facility off the grid. Victor was the boy’s handler.”
Rachel finally yanked the grate open. “Through here! It leads to the subway maintenance shafts.”
The five women crawled into the damp, narrow tunnel just as Anthony’s men began kicking at the pantry doors. The wood splintered.
Margaret led the way through the pitch-black corridor, using the flashlight from her phone. The air smelled of mold and old copper. They ran until their lungs burned, emerging onto a deserted, echoing maintenance platform beneath the city streets.
Suddenly, a groan echoed from the shadows near the tracks.
Margaret raised her gun, her finger tightening on the trigger.
A man dragged himself into the beam of her flashlight. His expensive suit was torn, and dark blood stained his white shirt.
It was Daniel.
He had tried to escape through the tunnels after abandoning them in the restaurant, but Anthony’s men had found him first.
“Mother,” Daniel coughed, spitting blood onto the concrete.
Margaret stared at the son who had tried to poison her. The son who had tortured her daughter for a decade.
Grace stepped forward, her eyes blazing with a maternal fury Margaret had never seen before. She grabbed Daniel by his ruined collar.
“Where is he?” Grace screamed. “Where is my son, Daniel?!”
Daniel wheezed, a bitter, bloody smile crossing his face. “You... you think I’m the monster? Anthony shot me. Your father... he shot me himself.”
“Where is the boy?!” Margaret roared, pressing the barrel of her gun against her son's knee.
Daniel squeezed his eyes shut. With a trembling, bloody hand, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a crumpled, laminated card.
He held it up.
It was a safe deposit ticket.
“He’s not at a facility,” Daniel gasped. “Anthony found out about the boy yesterday. He took him. The ticket... it’s the key to where he’s holding him.”
Rachel took the ticket from his hand. She shined her phone light on the faded logo.
May you like
The waitress gasped, dropping her phone.
“This isn't a bank ticket,” Rachel whispered, her whole body shaking. “This is the visitor pass for St. Jude’s Orphanage. The place where my mother sent my little brother before she disappeared.”
