Chapter 5 - What Belle Remembered
They reached the house in eleven minutes.
Harlan didn't wait for the SUV to stop completely.
Rue followed.
The front door stood open.
A guard lay unconscious in the foyer.
Alive.
Jonah checked him.
“Drugged.”
Harlan shouted Belle's name.
Nothing.
Then footsteps sounded upstairs.
Belle appeared.
“Harlan!”
Rue had never heard panic in his voice before.
Belle ran down the stairs.
He caught her halfway.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Where's Celeste?”
Belle pointed toward the study.
“Grandma Cee left.”
Harlan held her tighter.
Rue crouched beside them.
“What did she want?”
Belle looked confused.
“My bunny.”
Rue stared at Waffles.
The stuffed rabbit.
“Why?”
Belle shrugged.
“She said Mommy gave it to me.”
Harlan's eyes widened.
“She did.”
Rue remembered Augustus's letter.
The child knows where.
“Belle,” Rue said carefully, “did your mommy ever hide something inside Waffles?”
Belle thought.
“Music.”
Harlan frowned.
“What music?”
“When I squeeze him.”
She pressed the rabbit's belly.
Nothing happened.
“Used to play Mommy's song.”
Victor arrived behind them.
“The mechanism broke years ago.”
Rue took the rabbit carefully.
Something hard shifted inside.
Not stuffing.
She looked at Harlan.
“Scissors.”
They opened a seam along the rabbit's back.
Inside was an old miniature audio recorder.
And a flash drive.
Nobody spoke.
Harlan plugged the drive into an isolated laptop.
Files appeared.
Financial transfers.
Emails.
Contracts.
Enough evidence to show that Celeste had siphoned money from Voss Meridian through shell companies for nearly three decades.
Samuel Callaway had discovered it.
Augustus had confronted her.
Marianne had later found copies.
Rue looked at Belle.
“Your mother hid this?”
Harlan nodded slowly.
“She must have.”
There was one audio file.
Marianne's voice filled the room.
“If Harlan is hearing this, then something has happened to me.”
Harlan closed his eyes.
Belle looked at him.
The recording continued.
Marianne explained that she'd discovered evidence Celeste had been blackmailing Augustus.
Samuel Callaway had tried to expose her.
His death had not been random.
Rue's hands began shaking.
Harlan reached for her.
Stopped.
Then Rue took his hand herself.
Marianne's final words were quieter.
“I hid everything somewhere Celeste would never search. With the person Harlan would protect above himself.”
Belle.
The room stayed silent after the recording ended.
Rue cried without realizing it.
Not loudly.
Just tears.
“My father.”
Harlan's hand tightened around hers.
“We'll prove what happened.”
“You can't give him back.”
“No.”
His voice cracked slightly.
“I can't.”
Rue looked at him.
For once, he didn't promise something impossible.
That mattered.
Jonah entered.
“We have another problem.”
News alerts had begun appearing online.
HARLAN VOSS QUESTIONED IN DAUGHTER'S DISAPPEARANCE.
Another headline followed.
VOSS FAMILY INSIDER CLAIMS CHILD ENDANGERED BY FATHER'S CRIMINAL ASSOCIATES.
Rue stared.
“She planned this.”
Victor nodded.
“Celeste wants control of the company. If Harlan is implicated in Belle's disappearance—”
“The board removes him,” Elias finished.
“And who takes temporary control?” Rue asked.
Victor's expression hardened.
“Celeste.”
The trap was larger than Belle.
Belle had been leverage.
Victor had been framed.
Rue had been selected because she was Samuel Callaway's daughter.
“Why me?” Rue whispered.
Then she understood.
Celeste hadn't expected Rue merely to rescue Belle.
She'd expected Rue to discover the Voss connection.
Maybe even the records.
And if Rue died afterward?
People would connect Samuel's daughter to Harlan Voss.
Another scandal.
Another loose end removed.
Harlan looked at her.
“You're leaving Detroit tonight.”
“No.”
“Rue.”
“No.”
“There's a jet waiting.”
“I don't care.”
“This isn't negotiable.”
She stepped closer.
“Stop deciding what happens to me.”
“I am trying to keep you alive.”
“And I'm trying to find out who destroyed my father.”
Harlan lowered his voice.
“I won't watch somebody hurt you because of my family.”
Rue stared at him.
“Belle isn't your family's problem.”
“What?”
“She is your family.”
Rue pointed toward the laptop.
“And right now that little girl has been braver than every adult in this house.”
Harlan said nothing.
Rue's voice softened.
“You can't solve fear by locking everybody you love somewhere safe.”
Something changed in his eyes.
“You think that's what I'm doing?”
“I think you've been doing it since Marianne died.”
That hurt him.
She saw it.
Harlan stepped closer.
For one second, Rue thought he might kiss her.
He didn't.
He touched his forehead lightly to hers.
Nothing more.
“I cannot lose another person,” he whispered.
Rue closed her eyes.
“You don't own the choice.”
“No.”
His breath warmed her cheek.
“But I can ask.”
She opened her eyes.
“Then ask.”
“Please leave.”
“No.”
A broken laugh escaped him.
Rue smiled despite herself.
“See? Much healthier communication.”
Harlan actually laughed.
Once.
Quietly.
Then Belle screamed.
They ran.
The study was empty.
The back door stood open.
Waffles lay on the floor.
Harlan went white.
“BELLE!”
Jonah shouted into his radio.
Security flooded the grounds.
Rue picked up the rabbit.
Something was tucked beneath it.
A note.
Harlan grabbed it.
MERIDIAN. MIDNIGHT.
BRING THE ORIGINAL DRIVE.
NO POLICE.
Victor looked at the clock.
11:14 p.m.
Rue stared at the message.
Forty-six minutes.
Harlan was already moving.
Then Rue noticed something written faintly beneath the printed words.
Three letters.
Belle had apparently scratched them with a pencil.
B17.
Rue looked at Harlan.
“She's telling us where they're taking her.”
Vault 17.
But Harlan shook his head.
“No.”
“What?”
“Celeste already knows about vault 17.”
Rue understood.
Belle wasn't telling them where she was going.
She was telling them where Celeste believed the real evidence was hidden.
May you like
And that meant the woman who had spent decades burying the Voss family's secrets was about to discover she'd been chasing the wrong thing all along.
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