Chapter 9 - Someone Inside the EstateGrant Mercer should have been inside a federal holding room.
Instead, his voice filled Caleb’s underground office.
Maya drew her weapon.
“How?”
Caleb looked at her.
“You tell me.”
She grabbed her radio.
Nothing.
No signal.
Evelyn remained strangely calm.
“Backup corridor.”
Caleb turned.
“What?”
“Behind the north shelf.”
“You knew?”
“Your father built it.”
She pushed a book inward.
A section of shelving released.
Maya stared.
“How many secrets does this house have?”
Evelyn answered quietly.
“Too many.”
They entered the narrow passage.
Caleb looked back toward the office.
“Grant knows we’re here.”
“Yes.”
“He’s controlling the locks.”
“Partially.”
“What does partially mean?”
Evelyn moved through the corridor.
“August never allowed one system to control everything.”
“Except apparently Grant does.”
“No. If he did, we wouldn’t have this passage.”
They emerged behind a panel near the service stairs.
The estate was silent.
Caleb tried his phone.
No signal.
A jammer.
“Grant didn’t escape custody by himself,” Maya said.
“He has someone in federal law enforcement.”
“Thomas Bell.”
“Possibly.”
Evelyn looked toward the upper floor.
“The third system is analog.”
Caleb stared.
“You knew there were three systems?”
“I knew pieces.”
“I’m tired of pieces.”
“So was your father.”
They climbed.
“What is the third system?”
“Emergency recording.”
“Where?”
“Throughout the house.”
“Why?”
“August stopped trusting digital records. He installed hardwired microphones and timing relays.”
Maya frowned.
“Audio surveillance?”
“Only in his office, library and specific business rooms.”
“That may still be illegal depending on consent.”
Evelyn gave her a tired look.
“I’m sure my dead husband will cooperate with prosecution.”
Under different circumstances Caleb might have smiled.
They reached August’s former library.
Evelyn removed a wooden panel near the fireplace.
Behind it sat an old-fashioned tape control system connected to modern storage drives.
A clock ticked above it.
Perfectly.
Caleb understood.
“The real time.”
“Yes.”
“While digital cameras showed delayed time.”
“Yes.”
Maya examined the system.
“If the analog clock logged every delay activation…”
“It did.”
“Then Daniel was right.”
Evelyn inserted the blue ledger.
Not physically.
She read an entry.
“March 14, 11:22:08.”
Caleb searched the archive.
A synchronization event appeared at exactly that time.
Eleven-second offset.
An audio recording was attached.
He played it.
Grant’s younger voice.
“Judge’s car is at the south door.”
Richard answered.
“Give him eleven.”
Grant said, “Done.”
Static.
Then footsteps.
Maya stared.
“That’s conspiracy evidence.”
Evelyn turned pages.
“There are hundreds.”
Caleb understood why Richard had killed—or perhaps helped kill—August.
“This could destroy them.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t Dad release it?”
“Because he was still identifying the people involved.”
A noise sounded downstairs.
Door opening.
Maya raised her weapon.
“They’re inside.”
Caleb searched for a way to export the archive.
Evelyn stopped him.
“Physical copy only.”
“What?”
“August air-gapped it.”
Caleb almost laughed.
“Of course he did.”
“Take the drive.”
“Where?”
Evelyn opened a compartment.
A removable solid-state unit sat inside.
Caleb disconnected it.
The moment he did, an alarm sounded.
Grant’s voice returned through the speaker.
“That was disappointing.”
Maya swore.
“He has sensors on the archive.”
Footsteps approached.
Multiple people.
Evelyn grabbed Caleb.
“Servants’ stairs.”
They moved.
At the landing Caleb saw a figure below.
He pulled back.
Two armed men.
Grant appeared behind them.
No handcuffs.
No injuries beyond the bruise from Wade.
“Caleb!”
His voice echoed.
“You keep making this harder.”
Caleb whispered to Maya, “How did he get out?”
“He may never have reached custody.”
“What?”
“If compromised personnel were at the warehouse, they could have diverted him during transport.”
They descended another route.
The estate became a maze.
Caleb had lived here most of his life.
Yet Evelyn knew passages he had never seen.
At the kitchen corridor, they found one of the household security guards unconscious but breathing.
Maya checked him.
“Drugged.”
Grant had planned ahead.
They reached the garage.
Locked.
Evelyn entered a manual code.
Nothing.
“Grant changed it.”
Caleb looked around.
A service door led toward the gardens.
They ran.
The door opened.
Fresh September air hit them.
Then a shot cracked.
Stone exploded beside Caleb.
“Down!”
Maya returned fire toward an upper window.
They moved behind a retaining wall.
Caleb clutched the archive drive inside his coat.
Evelyn whispered, “He knows you have it.”
“Good.”
“What?”
“He’ll follow me.”
Maya shook her head.
“No improvising.”
“We need to get this evidence out.”
“I have agents outside the jammer radius.”
“How far?”
“Gatehouse.”
Two hundred yards.
Grant’s men were between them.
Caleb studied the garden.
A maintenance tunnel ran beneath the east greenhouse.
He remembered playing there as a child.
“Follow me.”
They crawled behind hedges.
Reached the greenhouse.
Inside, morning light turned glass panes silver.
Caleb moved a planting bench.
A trapdoor remained beneath it.
Evelyn stared.
“How did you know?”
“I was twelve once.”
They entered.
The tunnel smelled of wet soil.
Halfway through, Caleb heard movement behind them.
Grant.
“Go!”
Maya pushed Evelyn ahead.
They emerged near the gatehouse.
Federal vehicles were visible beyond the property wall.
Caleb ran.
A man stepped from behind a stone pillar.
Richard.
He held a gun.
“Give me the drive.”
Caleb stopped.
Evelyn emerged behind him.
“Richard.”
Her voice contained forty years of disgust.
Richard looked at her.
“You always chose August.”
“You made that easy.”
His jaw tightened.
“Drive.”
Caleb held it up.
“You have Nora and Daniel.”
“Yes.”
“Exchange.”
Richard laughed.
“You’re negotiating with something that belongs to me.”
“It belonged to Dad.”
“Dad?”
Richard’s face twisted.
“August was never the only Voss.”
“There it is again.”
“What?”
“A child complaining his brother got the bigger piece.”
Richard raised the weapon.
“Give it.”
Evelyn stepped forward.
“Richard, I know the archive password.”
He looked at her.
“You don’t need Caleb.”
“Mother.”
She ignored him.
“I’ll unlock everything.”
Richard smiled.
“I knew grief would eventually make you useful.”
Evelyn continued.
“But I want Nora and Daniel released.”
“No.”
“Then you never get the password.”
Richard looked at Caleb.
“I have another method.”
Caleb saw the decision forming.
Richard would shoot him.
Evelyn understood too.
She shouted, “The password is Cecilia!”
Richard froze.
Caleb turned.
Cecilia had been August and Richard’s mother.
Richard’s expression cracked.
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
“August hated sentiment.”
“He loved his mother.”
Richard lowered the gun slightly.
A mistake.
Maya stepped from the tunnel and aimed.
“Drop it.”
Richard spun.
Caleb lunged.
The gun fired.
Richard fell backward.
Not hit.
Startled.
The weapon skidded across gravel.
Federal agents rushed through the gate.
Richard tried to run.
He made it six steps.
Agents tackled him.
Caleb exhaled.
For the first time, both Grant and Richard could be captured.
Then his phone regained service.
It rang.
Nora.
Caleb answered.
“Where are you?”
Daniel’s voice replied.
“Caleb.”
Caleb nearly collapsed with relief.
“Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“Are you free?”
“Not exactly.”
“What happened?”
“Richard left two men.”
“Where?”
“Lake Meridian.”
“We’re coming.”
“No.”
Daniel’s voice became urgent.
“They rigged the building.”
“With what?”
“I don’t know. Fuel. Gas. Something.”
Caleb looked at Maya.
Daniel continued.
“They told me if Richard didn’t call by sunrise, they burn everything.”
“Nora?”
“With me.”
“Can you get out?”
“We’re locked inside.”
Maya began shouting orders.
Caleb checked the eastern sky.
Sunrise had already begun bleeding gold between the buildings.
“How much time?”
Daniel gave a broken laugh.
“You’re the clock expert now.”
Then a loud alarm sounded through the phone.
Nora screamed.
Daniel shouted.
The line filled with static.
Caleb looked toward the rising sun.
After eleven months, Daniel and Nora were finally together.
May you like
But unless Caleb reached them now, Elsie could lose both parents in the same morning.
And somewhere miles away, the clock had started counting down for real.
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