Chapter 4 - Nine Missing Minutes
I was outside before Ethan could stop me.
The black sedan had already reached the end of the road.
I ran toward my SUV.
“Adrian!”
Ethan grabbed the passenger door before I could close it.
“Move.”
“You chase that car, they know the kid identified it.”
“They already know we’re asking questions.”
“They don’t know what we know.”
The sedan turned left and disappeared.
Every instinct I had told me to follow.
Ethan’s experience told him otherwise.
Experience won.
Barely.
We returned inside.
Maria was kneeling beside Sofia, cleaning orange juice from her dress.
The little girl was crying.
Not because of the broken glass.
Because she had seen the car.
“That was it?” I asked gently.
She nodded.
“Same?”
Another nod.
Ethan crouched.
“Did you see anything special on the car?”
Sofia wiped her face.
“Horse.”
“Horse?”
She pointed to the hood ornament on a framed photograph nearby.
“No. Little horse. Here.”
She touched the lower corner of the imaginary rear window.
A sticker.
That gave us something.
We pulled footage from my front gate.
The sedan appeared for only four seconds.
Black Mercedes S-Class.
Tinted windows.
No front license plate visible because of the camera angle.
But on the lower rear windshield was a small white emblem.
A horse inside a circle.
Ethan froze the frame.
“I know that logo.”
“Where?”
“Private equestrian club north of the city. Crosswood.”
“Julian?”
“His family owns half of it.”
That was the first real location we had.
And that made it dangerous.
“Call police.”
Ethan shook his head.
“With what? A toddler’s identification of a black Mercedes and a shoe in a kidnapping photo? We can report Bruno stolen, absolutely. But if we accuse Julian and they raid the wrong property, whoever is holding Bruno moves him.”
“So we wait?”
“We investigate fast.”
I hated being told to wait.
I hated it even more because he was right.
At ten, Caleb Shaw arrived for work.
Caleb had managed security on my estate for four years.
Former military police.
Married.
Two children.
Never late.
Never careless.
And according to my system, his credentials had disabled every camera during the nine minutes Bruno disappeared.
I called him into the study.
Ethan sat silently in the corner.
Caleb looked between us.
“Problem?”
“When did you last see Bruno?”
The question surprised him.
“Tuesday afternoon.”
“Not Tuesday night?”
“No.”
“Where were you at ten?”
“Home.”
“Can anyone confirm?”
“My wife.”
I slid a printout across the desk.
His account login.
10:06 p.m.
Caleb went pale.
“That wasn’t me.”
“Your credentials.”
“I don’t care. It wasn’t me.”
“Who has them?”
“No one.”
“Apparently someone does.”
Caleb studied the log.
Then he looked at me.
“Change every code.”
“Already done.”
“Kill all remote access.”
“Done.”
“Check the disaster recovery account.”
Ethan leaned forward.
“Why?”
“Because admin passwords rotate, but the emergency account is backed up offline.”
“Who knows where?”
“Me. Mr. Vale. And—”
He stopped.
“And?”
Caleb looked at me.
“Miss Laurent.”
Vivienne.
“How?”
“Three months ago, the alarm malfunctioned when you were in Singapore. She called me because she couldn’t arm the second floor. I talked her through accessing the emergency panel.”
“Did you give her a password?”
“No. But she watched me enter the backup key when I came over.”
Another secret observed.
Another door left open.
Ethan asked, “Did Julian Cross ever visit this house while Mr. Vale was away?”
Caleb’s expression hardened.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Does his vehicle appear in your gate records?”
“I can check.”
We did.
Nothing.
Then Caleb said, “There’s another way.”
“What?”
“Service entrance.”
“That’s still logged.”
“Vehicles are logged. Pedestrians aren’t if staff hold the gate.”
“So Julian could have been dropped nearby.”
“Yes.”
We checked cameras.
The service entrance camera had also been disabled during the missing nine minutes.
But there was something else.
At 9:58 p.m., before the shutdown, a staff member opened the side gate.
A figure entered wearing a hooded raincoat.
Face hidden.
Caleb zoomed.
The man walked with a slight outward turn of his right foot.
Ethan noticed it immediately.
“Julian injured his ankle skiing three years ago.”
I looked at him.
“You know that?”
“I investigated him when your father considered buying his company.”
The figure disappeared toward the house.
At 10:07, cameras died.
At 10:14, the rear gate opened.
At 10:16, cameras returned.
The man in the raincoat never appeared leaving on foot.
Meaning he almost certainly left in the vehicle carrying Bruno.
Caleb looked sick.
“I should have caught this.”
“You couldn’t catch what someone erased.”
“It’s my job.”
I understood the feeling.
I had built my life around control.
Companies.
Properties.
Employees.
Contracts.
Security.
But someone had walked into my home, drugged my dog, manipulated my fiancée—or worked with her—and vanished through my own gate.
Control was an illusion.
At noon, Ethan received a report on the unknown phone.
Prepaid device.
Purchased in cash.
But the activation location mattered.
It had first gone online near Crosswood Equestrian Club.
We were getting closer.
Then I received another message.
This one contained no photograph.
Only text.
YOU WERE WARNED.
Seconds later, alarms sounded throughout the mansion.
Caleb ran toward the security panel.
“What happened?”
“Fire system.”
Smoke began spreading from the rear hallway.
We raced toward the study.
By the time we reached it, flames were climbing the curtains.
Someone had set fire to the room.
Not randomly.
The flames were concentrated around my desk.
Where we had left the printed gate logs.
Ethan grabbed an extinguisher.
Caleb triggered suppression.
Within minutes, the fire was out.
The desk was black.
Papers soaked.
One wall damaged.
But the safe remained intact.
Then Caleb stared at the shattered study window.
“That was locked.”
I approached.
On the floor beneath the window was a small black object.
A security camera.
Not mine.
A wireless miniature camera.
Someone had planted it in my study.
Which meant the people who took Bruno hadn’t just known I was searching.
They had been listening to us search.
May you like
And now they knew about Crosswood.
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