Chapter 2 - The Secret Beneath the Rabbit’s Ear
Darkness swallowed the room.
Lily screamed.
I moved before the sound had finished leaving her mouth.
One hand found Claire’s shoulder. The other reached for Lily.
“Down.”
Emergency lighting should have activated within two seconds.
It didn't.
That told me the outage wasn't electrical.
It was deliberate.
Gabriel drew his weapon.
Michael pulled Claire lower against the bed.
I lifted Lily into my arms.
She buried her face against my neck so quickly that her rabbit struck my shoulder.
“Adrian,” Claire whispered.
“I have her.”
“Don't let anybody take her.”
“No one is taking anyone.”
Footsteps sounded somewhere beyond the hallway.
Gabriel angled toward the door.
“Stay here.”
“You have twenty seconds,” I told him. “Then I’m coming.”
He disappeared into the darkness.
I carried Lily toward the wall opposite the windows.
My bedroom and the staff wing were separated by nearly eighty feet of corridor, but I had renovated the estate after my father died. Every major room had reinforced shutters and independent communications.
Apparently someone knew enough about the house to disable more than the cameras.
That narrowed the list.
Lily trembled.
“Is the bad man here?”
“I don't know.”
She lifted her head.
“You said grown-ups aren't supposed to lie.”
I stared at her.
“When did I say that?”
“Yesterday. When Mr. Gabriel said he didn't eat my cookie and I saw him.”
Despite the situation, Michael made a sound that might have been a laugh.
I lowered my voice.
“I don't know if Victor is here.”
“Okay.”
“But I promise nobody is taking you.”
Claire closed her eyes.
There was something almost painful in the way she reacted to that promise.
A green emergency strip finally illuminated beneath the baseboard.
Thirty seconds later, the main backup generator engaged.
Lights returned.
Gabriel came back.
“East service corridor door opened during the outage.”
“From inside or outside?”
“Inside.”
“So whoever did this was already here.”
“Yes.”
“Any sign of Russo?”
“Not yet.”
I turned toward Claire.
“Now we talk.”
Michael objected.
“She needs rest.”
“She can rest after I know what is threatening her daughter.”
Claire touched his wrist.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it isn't.”
“Michael.”
He looked between us, clearly unhappy.
“Five minutes.”
Claire nodded.
Gabriel closed the door after Michael left.
Lily remained in my arms.
Claire looked at her.
“Sweetheart, remember the game Daddy taught you?”
Lily nodded.
“What game?”
“The bunny game.”
I looked down.
Claire held out her hand.
“Can Mommy borrow Clover?”
So the rabbit had a name.
Lily reluctantly surrendered it.
Claire turned the toy over.
The stitching was rough from years of repairs.
“What am I looking for?”
“Left ear.”
She ran a thumb along the seam, found a small section that had been hand-sewn with darker thread, then looked at me.
“Your knife.”
I handed her the folding knife from my pocket.
Her fingers shook too much.
I took it back.
“Tell me where.”
“Three stitches beneath the fold.”
I cut carefully.
Something metallic clicked against the bed.
A tiny brass key fell onto the blanket.
Gabriel swore under his breath.
Stamped into the key was a number.
314.
“What does it open?” I asked.
Claire looked toward Lily.
“A locker.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
“You just cut a key out of your daughter’s toy and you're telling me you don't know what it opens?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
I studied her.
She wasn't lying.
“How did it get there?”
“My husband.”
Daniel Bennett.
I knew the name only because I had reviewed Claire’s background before allowing her and Lily to live on my property.
Daniel had died almost three years earlier in a highway accident outside Milwaukee.
Claire had been widowed at twenty-nine.
“He put it there two days before he died,” she said.
“What did he tell you?”
“That if anything happened to him, I was never to look for whatever the key opened unless Victor Kane came looking for me.”
“Why?”
“He said knowing too much could get me killed.”
“What did Daniel do for Victor?”
Claire looked surprised.
“You know?”
“I know Kane employs lawyers, auditors, consultants and people whose job titles are intentionally meaningless. Which one was Daniel?”
“Compliance analyst.”
Gabriel leaned against the dresser.
“For Kane Maritime?”
“For the parent company.”
“How long?”
“Five years.”
“What did he find?”
“I don't know everything.”
“Tell me what you do know.”
Claire took a slow breath.
“A year before Daniel died, he changed. He started checking the locks three times every night. He stopped using his work phone around me. Sometimes I would wake up at two in the morning and find him sitting in the kitchen staring at nothing.”
“Did he mention Victor?”
“Not at first.”
“Later?”
“He said Victor wasn’t a businessman who sometimes committed crimes.”
Her eyes found mine.
“He said Victor Kane built businesses so he could hide crimes inside them.”
Gabriel glanced at me.
That description sounded uncomfortably accurate.
Claire continued.
“Daniel discovered payment records that didn't match any legitimate accounts. Properties changing ownership through companies that existed only on paper. Officials receiving consulting fees. Employees who raised questions suddenly resigning.”
“Or disappearing?”
Her silence answered.
“Did Daniel copy records?”
“I think so.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
“Then why would Kane be hunting you?”
“Because Daniel told him something before he died.”
“What?”
Claire hesitated.
“He told Victor that if anything happened to him, the truth would go to Adrian Moretti.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“I didn't know who you were then.”
“That isn't possible.”
“It is.”
“I had never met Daniel Bennett.”
“I know.”
“Then why use my name?”
“I've spent three years trying to understand that.”
Lily shifted beside us.
“Daddy knew Mr. Adrian?”
Claire brushed hair from her forehead.
“No, baby.”
“Then how did Daddy know his name?”
Claire looked at me.
“I wish I knew.”
A knock sounded.
Gabriel opened the door only after checking the camera on his phone.
A security officer stood outside.
“We found Russo.”
“Where?”
“Maintenance building.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Bring him.”
Five minutes later, Anthony Russo sat in a chair in the corridor.
His face was pale.
A bruise darkened his temple.
He remembered drinking coffee at eleven twenty.
Nothing after that.
Michael examined him and found evidence of the same sedative given to Claire.
“Someone drugged both of them,” Gabriel said.
“Which means the sedative entered the property before tonight.”
“Probably.”
“Kitchen?”
“Checking.”
“Deliveries?”
“Checking.”
Claire suddenly stiffened.
“What?”
“My tea.”
“What about it?”
“Someone left tea outside my apartment.”
“When?”
“About ten thirty.”
“Who?”
“I thought it was housekeeping.”
“Did you order it?”
“No.”
“Why drink something you didn't order?”
She looked embarrassed.
“People leave things for Lily all the time. Cookies. Warm milk. I assumed someone saw I had a headache.”
Gabriel's expression darkened.
“I'll trace it.”
I looked at the brass key.
314.
A dead husband.
A hidden locker.
An enemy who had apparently spent three years searching for a woman and child.
And my name placed at the center of a secret I knew nothing about.
“Claire.”
“Yes?”
“You and Lily aren't staying in the staff wing.”
“Where are we going?”
“My rooms.”
“No.”
It was the first time I had heard Claire Bennett openly challenge me.
“This isn't a discussion.”
“It is when you're talking about my daughter.”
“Your apartment was breached.”
“So was your entire estate.”
She had me there.
Gabriel looked away so I wouldn't see his expression.
Claire continued.
“I appreciate what you're doing, but I'm not putting Lily in the middle of whatever exists between you and Victor.”
“She is already in the middle.”
Her face tightened.
“I know.”
“Then let me protect her.”
“I've spent three years trying not to depend on dangerous men.”
Something in that sentence landed harder than it should have.
“I'm not Victor.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
She held my gaze.
“I brought my daughter into your house, didn't I?”
Before I could answer, Gabriel’s phone buzzed.
He read the screen.
Then read it again.
“What?”
“We recovered part of the camera archive.”
“And?”
“The outage wasn't the first interruption.”
He turned the screen toward me.
At 10:41 p.m., an interior service camera captured a man walking toward Claire’s apartment.
The angle showed only his back.
Black jacket.
Gloves.
Baseball cap.
Nothing useful.
Then he passed beneath another camera.
He turned slightly.
His face remained hidden.
But clipped to his belt was an electronic access badge.
Gabriel zoomed in.
The badge had a gold stripe.
Only six people in my organization carried gold-level access.
I was one.
Gabriel was another.
The remaining four had worked with me for more than a decade.
“Someone copied a badge?” Claire asked.
“Maybe.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“The encryption changes every forty-eight hours. A copy shouldn't have worked.”
“Then whose badge was it?”
“We're pulling access logs.”
My phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
I answered without speaking.
For several seconds, all I heard was breathing.
Then a man's voice.
Calm.
Amused.
Familiar.
“Still collecting strays, Adrian?”
Victor Kane.
I stood.
Claire saw my face.
Her hand closed around Lily’s.
“What do you want?”
Victor chuckled.
“You already know.”
“No. I don't.”
“The key.”
My eyes dropped toward the brass object on the blanket.
Victor continued.
“Give me what Daniel Bennett stole, and maybe this ends with everyone still breathing.”
Claire covered her mouth.
“How did you get this number?”
“You're asking the least interesting question.”
“I'll ask a better one.”
“Go ahead.”
“Are you inside my house?”
Silence.
Then:
“Not anymore.”
The call ended.
At that exact moment, Gabriel’s tablet beeped.
The access logs had finished processing.
He stared at the results.
“What badge?” I asked.
His jaw hardened.
“It belongs to someone standing in this room.”
May you like
And the lights flickered again.
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