Chapter 1 - The Footprints in the Dark
“Stay behind me.”
Dominic Vale did not raise his voice.
He did not need to.
Something in those three words made Sophie stop moving immediately.
The little girl pressed herself against the back of his leg, one arm locked around her stuffed rabbit, the other still wrapped around two of Dominic’s fingers. Her breathing came in tiny, uneven bursts.
Dominic stared at the side door where the shadow had disappeared.
Rain rattled against the enormous windows behind them.
The abandoned security radio in his hand gave another burst of static.
No answer from the eastern post.
No footsteps from the guards who should have been standing less than thirty feet away.
Wrong.
Everything was wrong.
Dominic released Sophie’s hand for only a second and touched the inside pocket of his black shirt.
Empty.
He had left his phone in the bedroom.
A mistake he rarely made.
He looked down at Sophie.
“Can you walk quietly?”
She nodded.
Her eyes were enormous.
Dominic crouched.
“I need you to stay right beside me. Not in front. Not behind the corner. Beside me.”
Another quick nod.
He stood.
The side door remained half open.
Dominic moved toward it.
Slowly.
He could hear water dripping somewhere beyond the corridor.
Then a metallic click.
Dominic stopped.
Sophie nearly walked into his leg.
The sound came again.
Not a gun.
A latch.
Someone had opened the service stairwell at the far end of the adjoining passage.
Dominic moved faster.
By the time he reached the side door, the corridor beyond was empty.
Only a trail of wet shoeprints crossed the floor.
They led toward the service stairs.
Dominic followed them with his eyes, then looked in the opposite direction.
Elena’s room.
He made the decision instantly.
The intruder could wait.
Elena might not be able to.
He turned back toward Sophie.
“Take me to your mother.”
The child grabbed his hand again.
This time she pulled.
Dominic followed.
Elena Hart’s room was small by Vale House standards, tucked behind the linen storage area in the staff wing. The door stood open.
Sophie stopped outside it.
Her body stiffened.
Dominic looked inside.
A woman lay beside the narrow bed.
Barefoot.
Motionless.
Elena’s dark hair was spread across the floor.
One hand rested beneath her.
A broken drinking glass glittered near the dresser.
Dominic moved immediately.
“Elena.”
No response.
He dropped to one knee beside her and touched two fingers against her neck.
A pulse.
Weak.
But there.
Sophie stood in the doorway.
“Mommy?”
Dominic looked over his shoulder.
“Stay there.”
Sophie’s chin began trembling.
“Is she dead?”
“No.”
The answer came fast.
Certain.
Dominic had no idea whether he had the right to sound that certain.
He did it anyway.
“No. She’s breathing.”
He carefully rolled Elena onto her side.
There was no obvious blood. No visible injury.
But her skin felt cold.
Too cold.
He noticed a faint chemical smell near her mouth.
Not alcohol.
Not medication.
Something bitter.
He leaned closer.
A sweet, almost almond-like odor mixed with something medicinal.
Dominic’s expression hardened.
Footsteps suddenly pounded through the corridor.
Theo Mason appeared first, still pulling on a dark jacket.
Dr. Keller followed carrying a medical case.
Behind them came two armed security men Dominic recognized from the western wing.
Theo stopped when he saw Elena.
“What happened?”
Dominic stood.
“Sophie found her.”
Theo looked toward the little girl.
For half a second, his face changed.
Not fear.
Not surprise.
Something else.
Dominic caught it.
Then it disappeared.
Dr. Keller knelt beside Elena.
“What did she take?”
“I don’t know.”
“Medication?”
“I don’t know.”
Keller opened Elena’s eyelids, checked her breathing, then examined the broken glass.
“Everyone out.”
Dominic remained.
Keller glanced up.
“That includes you.”
“No.”
The doctor knew better than to argue.
Theo stepped toward Sophie.
“I’ll take her downstairs.”
Dominic’s head turned.
“No.”
Theo paused.
“She shouldn’t see this.”
“She stays where I can see her.”
Something flickered in Theo’s face again.
Then he nodded.
Dominic crossed to Sophie and lowered himself.
“Do you want to wait outside with me?”
Sophie nodded.
He lifted her.
She came into his arms without hesitation.
The movement surprised him more than it should have.
Her arms wrapped around his neck.
The stuffed rabbit pressed between them.
Dominic carried her into the corridor.
She buried her face against his shoulder.
Theo watched them.
Dominic noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You looked like you had something to say.”
Theo shoved his hands into his coat pockets.
“I’ve just never seen you carry a child.”
Dominic stared at him.
Theo looked away.
A few minutes later, Dr. Keller stepped into the hall.
His expression had changed.
“She needs a hospital.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know yet, but this wasn’t exhaustion.”
“Poison?”
Keller looked toward Sophie before answering.
“Possibly a sedative. Possibly more than one compound.”
Dominic turned toward Theo.
“Seal the house.”
Theo nodded.
“No one leaves. No one enters. Pull every camera from eleven tonight onward.”
One of the guards spoke.
“Boss, the east cameras are down.”
Dominic looked at him.
“What?”
The guard swallowed.
“East corridor, service stairs, staff wing. All offline.”
“Since when?”
“We don’t know.”
“That is not an answer.”
The guard went pale.
Theo stepped in.
“I’ll find out.”
Dominic stared at him for a long second.
“Do that.”
Dr. Keller arranged for Elena to be moved to Vale House’s private medical suite rather than an outside hospital. Dominic trusted very few institutions with his problems, and fewer still with the people inside his home.
As two guards carefully lifted Elena onto a stretcher, Sophie reached toward her.
“Mommy.”
Dominic tightened his arm around the child.
“She’s getting help.”
Sophie looked at him.
“Can I go?”
“Yes.”
He carried her behind the stretcher.
As they passed Elena’s doorway, Sophie suddenly twisted in his arms.
“My bunny.”
“You have him.”
She shook her head.
“No. Bunny’s pocket.”
Dominic looked at the stuffed rabbit.
“What pocket?”
Sophie pushed one tiny finger beneath the rabbit’s worn fabric collar.
A small seam had been stitched into its chest.
Dominic saw something inside.
Paper.
He stopped.
“What is that?”
Sophie frowned.
“Mommy put it there.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
Dominic’s entire body went still.
Theo, walking several steps ahead, turned.
“What?”
Dominic ignored him.
He eased the folded piece of paper from the rabbit.
It was not paper.
It was a photograph.
Old.
Creased.
A man stood outside Vale House twenty years earlier.
Beside him was a woman Dominic knew instantly.
His mother.
And beside her stood another man.
A man Dominic had spent half his life believing was dead.
His father’s former business partner.
Gabriel Kane.
Dominic stared at the image.
On the back, Elena had written three words in hurried black ink.
HE IS HERE.
Dominic looked down the corridor.
Then at Theo.
Then toward the silent service staircase.
His father’s old partner had supposedly died eighteen years ago.
Dominic had attended the funeral.
There had been a body.
A grave.
A death certificate.
Yet somewhere inside Vale House, Elena had apparently discovered proof that Gabriel Kane was alive.
And someone had put her on the floor before she could tell Dominic.
Sophie touched his cheek.
“Mr. Vale?”
Dominic looked at her.
Her eyes were full of fear.
He folded the photograph and slid it into his pocket.
Then he held Sophie a little tighter.
“No one touches you,” he said quietly.
She did not understand why his voice had changed.
Theo did.
Dominic turned toward him.
“Lock every exit.”
Theo nodded.
Dominic’s eyes became colder.
“And Theo?”
“Yeah?”
“If anyone tries to leave…”
Theo waited.
Dominic looked toward Elena’s room one last time.
“Bring them to me.”
An hour later, after Elena had been stabilized, Dominic stood inside the security room watching lines of static across six disabled camera feeds.
The failure looked accidental at first.
A system glitch.
Then the technician enlarged one diagnostic log.
Dominic leaned closer.
The east-wing cameras had not failed.
Someone had entered the security system manually.
Using a senior clearance code.
Only four people in Vale House possessed that level of access.
Dominic.
Theo.
His chief financial officer, Marcus Reed.
And his uncle, Julian Vale.
Dominic stared at the screen.
Then the technician pulled up the login history.
A single name appeared beside the override command.
THEO MASON.
Dominic said nothing.
Behind him, the security-room door opened.
Theo walked in.
“You wanted me?”
Dominic slowly turned around.
For the first time in fourteen years, he looked at the man he trusted most and wondered whether Sophie had knocked on his door just in time to save more than her mother.
Maybe she had walked into the middle of a betrayal that had already begun.
May you like
And maybe the man standing in front of Dominic had been part of it.
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