Chapter 8 - THE TRAITOR IN THE HOUSE
Detective Ramirez heard the alarm from upstairs.
She forced the emergency ventilation system to restart before the oxygen level became fatal.
By the time officers opened the steel door, Nathaniel had vanished.
A service tunnel led from the underground office to the woods beyond the estate walls.
Someone had known exactly how to enter and escape without being detected.
The ledger survived.
Several computer drives did not.
A timed electrical surge destroyed the active servers moments before the fire system was triggered.
Cole believed Nathaniel had not acted alone.
Someone inside the mansion had helped him.
Grant ordered every employee to surrender their phones and access cards.
The security team reviewed camera footage from the previous twelve hours.
At 3:14 a.m., one camera showed a maid entering the west hallway.
At 3:17, the same woman emerged wearing a different uniform.
Harris identified her as Celeste Marrow, Renata’s personal assistant.
Celeste had worked at the estate for eighteen months.
She disappeared before police could question her.
Her employee file contained a false address.
Her fingerprints matched those of a woman wanted in connection with financial fraud in three states.
Renata had planted her inside the mansion long before Evelyn died.
Grant dismissed every employee hired through Renata’s office.
He doubled security around Lily.
Still, the atmosphere inside the house became more dangerous.
Everyone watched everyone else.
Lily began speaking more often, but only to me.
She told me Renata had entered her bedroom on the night after Evelyn’s funeral.
Renata sat beside her and described exactly what would happen if Lily ever spoke.
She said Grant would be arrested.
She said I would be sent away.
She said Lily would live in a dark institution where no one would hear her scream.
Lily had believed every word.
Her silence had not been caused by an inability to speak.
It had been an act of protection.
She had sacrificed her own voice to protect her father.
Grant wept when I told him.
“I married the woman who terrorized my daughter.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have known.”
Renata had been Evelyn’s closest friend.
She had comforted Grant during his grief.
She had helped care for Lily.
One year after Evelyn’s death, she married him.
It was not love.
It was infiltration.
Late that night, Detective Cole received a call from the jail where Harris was being held.
Harris had asked to speak privately.
He claimed Renata was preparing to flee the country.
He also claimed Evelyn’s death had involved four people.
Renata.
Julian.
Nathaniel.
And someone Harris refused to name over the phone.
Before Cole reached the jail, the lights in Harris’s cellblock failed.
When emergency power returned, a guard was unconscious.
Harris’s cell was empty.
Written across the wall in blood were five words.
SHE HAS TAKEN THE CHILD.
May you like
I ran upstairs.
Lily’s bed was empty.
