Chapter 5 - SOMEONE INSIDE THE GATES
Damon locked Crossmoor down within six minutes.
Security guards searched the grounds.
Every gate closed.
Every camera feed was reviewed.
Nobody had entered.
That was the problem.
“If nobody came in,” Mara said, “then the phone belonged to someone already here.”
Damon did not answer.
Ruth crossed herself.
Lily sat with the boys in the kitchen.
Mara refused to let her see how afraid she was.
Damon took the burner phone.
“There’s no SIM registration.”
“Can you trace it?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe isn’t good enough.”
His jaw tightened.
“You think I don’t know that?”
Mara stepped closer.
“My daughter is involved now.”
“So are my sons.”
They stared at each other.
Then Mara said, “So stop hiding things from me.”
Damon looked away.
That was answer enough.
“Tell me what Victor wants.”
Damon walked toward the study.
Mara followed.
He opened a safe behind a painting.
Inside was a black accounting ledger.
Old-fashioned.
Handwritten.
“This contains payments made before I took full control of Cross Freight.”
“Payments to who?”
“Judges.”
“Police?”
“Yes.”
“Politicians?”
“Yes.”
Mara swallowed.
“Your family did that?”
“My father.”
“And you?”
Damon’s eyes hardened.
“I inherited the company at thirty-two.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
He said it without hesitation.
“I didn’t make those payments.”
Mara looked at the ledger.
“Why keep it?”
“Insurance.”
“Against Victor?”
“Against everyone.”
Victor had handled the dirty operations for Damon’s father.
When Damon took over, he shut most of them down.
Victor lost millions.
Then Damon’s wife, Elise, died in a car crash.
Mara stared at him.
“You think Victor killed her.”
“I know someone tampered with her brakes.”
Mara’s stomach turned.
“Did police investigate?”
“They called it mechanical failure.”
“And you didn’t believe them.”
“No.”
Damon closed the safe.
“Three weeks after Elise died, Victor asked me for the ledger.”
Mara understood.
“You refused.”
“Yes.”
“So this has been going on for years.”
“Four years.”
“And your sons have grown up inside it.”
Damon said nothing.
That night, Lily slept in Mara’s room.
At 2:06 a.m., Mara woke to the smell of smoke.
She sat up.
“Lily?”
No answer.
The bed beside her was empty.
Mara’s heart stopped.
She ran into the hallway.
Smoke curled beneath a door at the far end.
Fire alarms began screaming.
“MICAH!”
Doors opened.
Jonah ran out.
Then Eli.
Then Noah.
No Micah.
No Lily.
Mara raced through smoke.
“LILY!”
A child screamed from downstairs.
Mara followed the sound.
The library door was locked.
She slammed against it.
“Lily!”
“Mommy!”
Mara attacked the lock with a brass statue.
Damon appeared through the smoke.
“Move!”
He kicked the door twice.
It burst open.
Lily and Micah were inside.
Behind them, curtains were burning.
Damon grabbed Micah.
Mara grabbed Lily.
They ran outside as sprinklers exploded overhead.
Fire crews arrived minutes later.
Nobody was badly hurt.
But someone had locked the library from the outside.
Mara stood beneath a blanket holding Lily.
Micah walked toward her.
His face was gray with ash.
“I saw him.”
Mara knelt.
“Who?”
Micah looked toward the line of security guards.
Then he pointed.
May you like
At Damon’s head of security.
“Mr. Keller.”
