Chapter 7 - The Warning in Audrey’s Apartment
Dorian locked the estate down within three minutes.
Nobody entered.
Nobody left.
Household staff gathered in the main dining room while Nolan’s security team searched every floor, basement corridor, garden building, vehicle, and service passage.
The wolf ring was placed inside an evidence bag.
Audrey remained with Caleb.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“Security check.”
“Because of me?”
“No.”
Audrey hated how often he asked that.
Children were remarkably talented at placing themselves in the center of disasters adults created.
“You didn’t cause anything.”
Caleb nodded without believing her.
An hour later Dorian entered.
“Nothing.”
Audrey stood.
“What do you mean?”
“No unauthorized person found.”
“Then somebody authorized left it.”
“Possibly.”
“What about cameras?”
“No useful image.”
“That seems convenient.”
“Yes.”
Dorian looked at Caleb.
“Can I speak with Audrey?”
Caleb picked up Arthur Junior.
“Are you going to yell?”
Dorian’s expression softened.
“No.”
“At her?”
“No.”
“Promise?”
Dorian looked offended.
“I don’t yell at Audrey.”
Audrey raised an eyebrow.
Caleb looked between them.
“You both yell.”
He walked away.
Audrey waited until the door closed.
“He’s observant.”
“So I’ve discovered.”
Dorian handed her a folder.
Inside were photographs of wolf rings.
Names.
Dates.
Forty-two recipients.
Several were dead.
Seven lived outside Louisiana.
Nine had documented alibis.
Twenty-six remained.
Audrey scanned the names.
Adrian Ashford.
Martin Bell.
Victor Shaw.
Henry Lancaster.
Lucien Moreau.
“What about Nolan?”
“Never received one.”
“So whoever left the ring could be framing one of these people.”
“Yes.”
“Or warning us that the ring matters.”
“Yes.”
Audrey sat.
“Who is Victor Shaw?”
“My father’s former chief of security.”
“Where is he?”
“Prison.”
“For?”
“Attempted murder.”
“Convenient.”
Dorian’s gaze hardened.
“You think my family has a suspiciously large number of criminals.”
“I was going to say Christmas dinners must be interesting.”
He almost smiled.
Audrey pointed at another name.
“Henry Lancaster?”
“Dead.”
“Martin Bell?”
“My attorney.”
“Adrian?”
“My brother.”
She closed the folder.
“Who loved Elena?”
Dorian didn’t answer immediately.
“Everyone.”
“Who hated her?”
That changed his expression.
“My father.”
“Why?”
“She wanted me out.”
“Out of what?”
Dorian looked toward the closed door.
Then finally said what Audrey had been waiting to hear.
“My family did not build everything legally.”
She remained silent.
“There were protection deals. Smuggling decades ago. Political bribery. My father believed laws were obstacles purchased by poorer men.”
“And you?”
“I spent twelve years moving the legitimate businesses away from it.”
“Moving away isn’t the same as stopping.”
“No.”
“Did Elena know?”
“Yes.”
“She wanted you to leave.”
“Yes.”
“And your father hated her for it.”
“Yes.”
“When did he die?”
“Two years after Elena.”
“Could he have ordered her death?”
Dorian’s face became unreadable.
“I asked myself that question every day after finding the warehouse.”
“Answer it.”
“Yes.”
Audrey inhaled.
“Would Adrian know?”
“Yes.”
“Would he protect your father?”
Dorian’s answer came slowly.
“Once, he would have.”
That evening Audrey returned to her guest room.
Someone had placed clean clothes on the bed.
Not designer clothes.
Normal clothes.
Jeans.
Sweaters.
Socks.
Her size.
She found Dorian downstairs.
“You bought me clothing?”
“Housekeeper did.”
“You told her.”
“You required clothes.”
“I have clothes.”
“In an apartment somebody broke into.”
Audrey sighed.
“Thank you.”
He nodded.
“That looked painful,” she said.
“What?”
“Receiving gratitude.”
“I survived.”
She smiled.
The moment was unexpectedly easy.
Then Dorian asked, “Why did you jump?”
Audrey’s smile faded.
“What?”
“Into the river.”
“There was a child drowning.”
“That explains calling emergency services. It doesn’t explain climbing over a bridge.”
Audrey considered the question.
“My younger sister drowned when I was thirteen.”
Dorian said nothing.
“Community pool. Everybody thought somebody else was watching.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She was six.”
Audrey looked at her hands.
“For years I replayed the moment before anyone noticed. I kept wondering whether one person moving thirty seconds earlier could’ve changed everything.”
“So when you heard Caleb…”
“I moved.”
Dorian sat beside her.
Not too close.
“When Elena died, I was supposed to drive her.”
Audrey looked at him.
“She asked me to go to dinner with her. We had argued. I told her I had work.”
His voice was flat.
“She drove herself.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“Knowing that doesn’t make the memory quieter.”
Audrey understood.
Two people sitting inside a mansion, each carrying a dead woman they believed they should have saved.
For the first time, Dorian Ashford did not seem powerful to Audrey.
He seemed human.
That frightened her differently.
Because human beings could be loved.
And loving someone gave the world another place to hurt you.
Before either could speak again, Caleb screamed upstairs.
Dorian was moving before Audrey stood.
They reached his bedroom together.
Caleb sat upright, trembling.
“It was him.”
Dorian crouched.
“Who?”
Caleb pointed toward the window.
A figure stood beyond the glass on the dark lawn.
Dorian turned.
The figure ran.
Security lights flooded the garden.
Nolan’s men gave chase.
Audrey wrapped Caleb in her arms.
Dorian reached the window.
The intruder disappeared between trees.
Thirty seconds later Nolan’s voice came through Dorian’s phone.
“We lost him at the east wall.”
Dorian cursed.
“That wall is twelve feet high.”
“He didn’t climb it.”
“What?”
“There’s an old service gate.”
Dorian went still.
“That gate was sealed years ago.”
“Someone opened it from inside.”
Audrey looked at Caleb.
He was staring at the garden.
“Was that the person who took you?”
The boy began crying.
He whispered one word.
“Almost.”
Audrey’s heart pounded.
“Almost what?”
Caleb buried his face against her.
“Almost the same.”
May you like
Someone wanted them chasing the wrong person.
And that meant the real enemy was watching closely enough to know exactly where they were looking.
