Chapter 12 - The Voice Behind the Locked Door
Roman returned to Blackridge because Samuel had asked him to.
He simply did not return the way Samuel expected.
Marcus entered through the northern tunnel.
Gabriel used the abandoned greenhouse passage.
Roman and Claire drove openly through the main gate.
“Still time to stay in the car,” Roman said.
Claire looked at him.
“You know what I’m going to say.”
“Yes.”
“Then why ask?”
“Hope.”
The front doors stood open.
The estate was dark.
A single light glowed inside Vincent Vale’s old study.
Claire entered beside Roman.
On the desk sat a telephone.
It rang.
Roman answered.
Samuel Mercer’s voice came through.
“Welcome home.”
“Where are they?”
“Your impatience resembles Vincent’s.”
“Where?”
“Ethan and Evelyn are alive.”
“Proof.”
A video appeared on the study television.
Ethan and Evelyn sat in separate rooms.
Both conscious.
Claire stepped closer.
“Mom.”
Evelyn could not hear her.
Samuel continued.
“Claire goes downstairs.”
Roman said, “No.”
Samuel laughed.
“You are predictable.”
“So I’m told.”
“If Claire doesn’t enter Vincent’s archive within three minutes, Ethan dies first.”
Claire looked at Roman.
He shook his head.
She whispered, “We don’t have a choice.”
“There is always a choice.”
“Not one I can live with.”
That stopped him.
Claire touched his hand.
“I go downstairs. You stay close.”
Roman’s voice dropped.
“I don’t like this.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
She walked toward the underground archive.
Roman followed despite Samuel ordering otherwise.
No immediate consequence.
Good.
Samuel was bluffing about some control.
Inside the archive, a new light illuminated the hidden room.
A speaker activated.
“Claire, stand in front of the projector.”
She did.
“Look at the childhood photograph on the shelf.”
Claire found it.
She had not noticed it earlier.
A picture of seven-year-old Claire drawing at Northstar Construction.
On the desk beside her sat crayons.
The drawing showed a house.
A tree.
And a red door.
Claire stared.
“I remember this.”
Roman stood behind her.
“What?”
“My mother asked me to draw where treasure sleeps.”
Samuel’s voice came through.
“Continue.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Memory came in fragments.
Her mother laughing.
A red crayon.
A little brass key.
Vincent Vale entering the room unexpectedly.
Evelyn hiding papers.
Claire whispered, “There was a door.”
Roman looked around.
“No red door here.”
“Not here.”
She remembered the smell.
Dust.
Wood.
Music.
“It was inside a piano room.”
Roman became still.
“My mother’s music room.”
The west wing.
Sealed since Roman’s mother died.
Samuel laughed softly.
“At last.”
The speaker disconnected.
Roman took Claire’s arm.
“He knows now.”
“We know too.”
They ran upstairs.
Gabriel emerged from another corridor.
“Movement west wing.”
Marcus joined them.
“Three men.”
Roman opened the old music room.
Dust covered the piano.
Portraits remained draped.
Claire walked slowly.
Memory sharpened.
She pointed toward a small decorative door beneath the window seat.
It had once been painted red.
Now faded brown.
Roman opened it.
Inside was a child-sized storage compartment.
Empty.
Samuel’s voice came from behind them.
“Not empty.”
They turned.
Samuel Mercer stood in the doorway.
Sixty years old.
Elegant.
Silver hair.
Same eyes as Ethan.
He held no gun.
That made Roman more cautious.
Samuel smiled.
“Roman Vale.”
Roman stepped in front of Claire.
“Samuel.”
“You look disappointed.”
“I expected somebody taller.”
Claire almost laughed despite herself.
Samuel’s smile faded.
“You have your father’s arrogance.”
“And you have his obsession with me.”
Samuel looked at Claire.
“Open the floor panel.”
Roman said, “She doesn’t do anything.”
Samuel raised a phone.
Onscreen Evelyn appeared.
A man stood behind her.
Roman’s expression hardened.
Samuel said, “Floor panel.”
Claire knelt.
Beneath the storage compartment she found a loose board.
Under it lay a metal box.
Roman stared.
Samuel had been searching twenty years.
Claire found it in twenty seconds because she remembered a childhood game.
She opened the box.
Inside were dozens of ledger pages.
Originals.
Samuel exhaled.
“There you are.”
Roman looked at him.
“Your empire is paper.”
“No.”
Samuel smiled.
“My freedom is.”
Claire lifted one page.
“This proves what you did.”
“It proves what everyone did.”
“Including innocent people?”
Samuel shrugged.
“Innocence is usually a matter of incomplete information.”
Roman recognized the philosophy.
Men like Samuel convinced themselves morality was a luxury possessed by weaker people.
Claire stood.
“You killed people for this.”
Samuel’s expression remained calm.
“I protected a structure.”
“You tried to kill my mother.”
“She made herself inconvenient.”
Roman took one step.
Samuel raised the phone.
Evelyn’s captor moved closer.
Roman stopped.
Samuel looked at Claire.
“Bring me the box.”
Claire obeyed.
Roman’s jaw tightened.
She walked toward Samuel.
Five feet.
Four.
Three.
Then Claire dropped the box.
Pages scattered across the floor.
Samuel instinctively looked down.
Roman moved.
He struck Samuel’s arm away from the doorway and pulled Claire behind him.
Gabriel entered from the side.
Marcus from the opposite corridor.
Samuel retreated.
Still smiling.
“You think this changes anything?”
Roman looked at the scattered pages.
“No.”
Samuel pressed a button on his phone.
Every screen in the room illuminated.
A countdown appeared.
Five minutes.
Claire whispered, “What is that?”
Samuel backed through the doorway.
“Blackridge has always had good bones.”
Roman’s expression changed.
Samuel smiled.
“But even good houses burn.”
He disappeared into the corridor.
The countdown reached 4:47.
May you like
And somewhere beneath them, an alarm began screaming.
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