Chapter 4 - BLACKWOOD BEFORE DAWN
Nathan read the message three times because each reading offered a different way to fail.
If he took the bracelet to Blackwood, he would carry the only known evidence into a trap.
If he refused, Sarah might die before a rescue team reached her.
If he gave the bracelet to law enforcement, the person who had forged a judge's order and a physician's signature might learn exactly where it was stored.
Deputy Cross photographed the screen and forwarded the image through an encrypted channel.
"Do not answer yet."
"They asked for the bracelet."
"That tells us they do not know whether you found the card."
Nathan looked at the silver plate.
"They know enough."
"We can use that."
"How?"
"You tell them you need proof Sarah is alive."
"The photograph is proof."
"A photograph can be old."
Nathan studied Sarah's face.
A thin cut crossed her eyebrow.
Her blond hair was matted with blood.
Behind her, through the car window, a green highway marker was blurred by snow.
Only the final digit was visible.
Seven.
Cross enlarged the image.
"There are three state routes in this county ending in seven."
"Blackwood sits near Route 217."
"It closed five years ago."
"You know it?"
"Every deputy in the county knows it."
Cross's mouth tightened.
"Residents accused the facility of abuse, falsified commitments, and illegal restraints."
"What happened to the cases?"
"Records disappeared."
"Who represented the owners?"
Cross did not need to answer.
Victor's shadow stood behind every door they opened.
Nathan typed a response.
SHOW ME SARAH HOLDING TODAY'S DATE.
Cross stopped him before he sent it.
"No."
"Why?"
"They may hurt her to force compliance."
"They already have."
"Ask a question only Sarah would know."
Nathan stared at the message field.
He had not spoken to his sister in seven years.
He did not know her favorite song, where she had lived, or how she took her coffee.
He did not know the names of his nephews until an hour earlier.
The realization shamed him more than Marcus's accusation.
Then a memory surfaced from childhood.
Sarah had been six when she crawled beneath Nathan's bed during a thunderstorm.
Their mother had forbidden sweets upstairs, but Nathan had hidden peppermint candies in a blue tin beside the radiator.
Sarah had eaten three and called them moonstones because the sugar glittered in the dark.
Nathan typed.
ASK SARAH WHAT WE CALLED THE CANDY UNDER MY BED.
He sent it.
The answer arrived four minutes later.
A new photograph showed Sarah holding a scrap of cardboard.
MOONSTONES.
The word was written in blood.
Nathan turned away from the phone.
Rosa covered Lily's eyes before the child could see.
Cross swore quietly.
"They are moving her."
"How do you know?"
"The background changed."
He pointed to the window behind Sarah.
A line of blue emergency lights reflected against the snow.
"They passed a county response vehicle."
Cross transmitted the image to dispatch and requested all units near Routes 117, 217, and 317.
Nathan looked toward the treatment room.
Ethan remained ventilated.
Owen had begun warming, but a harsh cough shook his small chest.
Lily refused to leave either brother.
"I cannot take them into this."
"You are not taking anyone," Cross said.
"You are staying here."
"They will kill Sarah."
"They will kill you too if you arrive alone."
"Then do not let me arrive alone."
Cross shook his head.
"I have one patrol vehicle, one damaged plow, and a crime scene team pinned down at a cabin."
"What happened to them?"
"We do not know."
His radio crackled as if summoned by the question.
A search officer came through in a whisper.
"Cross, suspect fled through the north tunnel."
"Status?"
"Officer Bell has a gunshot wound to the shoulder."
"Sarah Carter?"
"Cellar was empty."
"Any evidence she was there?"
"Blood on the restraints."
Lily heard the final word.
Her hands flew to her ears.
"No."
Rosa gathered her close.
"You are safe, mi cielo."
"Mommy hates the chair."
Nathan's chest tightened.
"What chair?"
Lily stared at the floor.
"The one with belts."
Cross crouched to her height.
"Lily, did your father put your mother in that chair?"
"Sometimes."
"Was anyone else there?"
She nodded.
"The nurse."
"What nurse?"
"The man with the silver ring."
"Did you know his name?"
"Mommy called him Doctor Vale."
Nathan looked sharply at Cross.
Victor was a lawyer, not a physician.
Cross asked another question.
"Did he have white hair?"
Lily shook her head.
"Black hair."
Nathan understood.
Victor Hale was not the only Vale connected to Blackwood.
Dr. Conrad Vale had founded the facility in 1996.
He was Victor's half brother.
Conrad had disappeared after the abuse investigation and was presumed to have fled the country.
Nathan had served with him on a surgical ethics panel years earlier.
He remembered a polished man with black hair, a silver signet ring, and a talent for describing cruelty as treatment.
"Conrad Vale is alive," Nathan said.
Cross called dispatch and requested a photograph.
A file arrived within minutes.
Lily saw the image and began shaking.
"That's him."
Marcus watched through the glass from the back seat of Cross's SUV, where he had been secured after the shooting.
His face had gone pale.
Cross carried the tablet outside and held Conrad's photograph against the window.
"Is this the man who was in your house?"
Marcus looked away.
"I want a lawyer."
"Your lawyer's brother is holding your wife at gunpoint."
Marcus said nothing.
Cross opened the rear door.
Snow blew into the vehicle.
"They used your truck, your house, and your custody petition."
Marcus's jaw flexed.
"They are building the case around you."
"Close the door."
"When Sarah's body appears, you will own every bruise."
"Close the door."
"Conrad Vale will return to whatever hole he has lived in for five years, and Victor will attend your trial with a sympathetic expression."
Marcus turned his head.
"Victor is not afraid of trials."
It was the first useful sentence he had spoken.
Cross leaned closer.
"What is he afraid of?"
Marcus looked toward the house.
His eyes settled on the bracelet in Nathan's hand.
"Her memory."
Nathan stepped outside beneath the covered entry.
"What does that mean?"
Marcus laughed once.
"Sarah remembers numbers."
"What numbers?"
"Accounts."
"Whose accounts?"
Marcus glanced at Cross.
"I want immunity."
"You are not negotiating from a strong position," Cross said.
"Then let her die."
Nathan moved before he thought.
He crossed the distance and pulled Marcus partly from the vehicle by the front of his shirt.
Cross shoved Nathan back.
"Do that again and I arrest you too."
Marcus smiled through the open door.
"There he is."
Nathan forced his hands open.
"You hit my sister."
"I did worse than that."
Lily stood behind the glass.
Marcus saw her.
For the first time, shame touched his face.
It vanished almost immediately.
"She was supposed to forget."
"Forget what?"
"The accounts."
"What accounts?"
Marcus looked at the bracelet.
"The ones that paid for Blackwood."
Cross stepped between them.
"Who paid?"
"Pierce money."
Nathan stopped breathing.
"That is a lie."
"Ask your father."
"My father is dead."
"Then ask the man who signed for him."
"Victor?"
Marcus leaned back against the seat.
"You thought I took Sarah away from you."
His voice dropped.
"Your family handed her to me."
Nathan stared at him.
Memories rearranged themselves with sickening speed.
His father refusing to discuss Sarah after she left.
His mother burning Sarah's photographs from the mantel.
Victor arriving with the letter before Nathan even knew Sarah was gone.
The trust amendment that removed Sarah as a beneficiary because she had supposedly stolen from the family company.
Nathan had signed it.
"Why?"
Marcus's expression became almost pitying.
"Because she found out where the money came from."
The satellite phone rang again.
This time the message contained a live video link.
Cross mirrored it to the tablet.
Sarah appeared inside a dim room with concrete walls.
Her wrists were bound to a metal chair.
Conrad Vale stood behind her in a dark coat.
His black hair was streaked with gray, but the silver ring was unchanged.
"Good morning, Nathan," Conrad said.
"It has been a long time."
Nathan moved closer to the screen.
"Let her go."
"Bring me the bracelet."
"You will kill her once you have it."
"Possibly."
Conrad smiled.
"But refusing guarantees it."
Sarah lifted her head.
One eye was swollen nearly shut.
"Nathan, don't."
Conrad struck the back of her chair with a metal rod.
The sound echoed through the room.
Lily screamed from inside the house.
Nathan stepped in front of the tablet.
"Do not touch her again."
"Then listen carefully."
Conrad angled the camera toward an old sign bolted to the wall.
BLACKWOOD RECOVERY CENTER.
"You have until sunrise."
"The road is impassable."
"Your father built a service tunnel beneath the east ridge."
Nathan looked at Marcus.
Marcus nodded once.
"Come alone," Conrad continued.
"If I see law enforcement, Sarah dies."
The video image shifted.
For a fraction of a second, Nathan saw another figure reflected in a dark window behind Conrad.
An older man in a charcoal overcoat.
Victor Hale.
Alive.
Watching.
Then the screen went black.
Cross began issuing orders.
Nathan barely heard them.
He stared at the dead tablet while one sentence repeated in his mind.
Your father built a service tunnel.
Rosa approached with a small brass key.
"I hoped I would never need to show you this."
Nathan looked at her.
"What is it?"
"Your mother gave it to me the night Sarah disappeared."
Rosa's eyes filled with tears.
"She told me that if Sarah ever came home, I was to open the locked room beneath your father's library."
Nathan glanced toward the hallway.
He had lived in the mansion for seven years without knowing there was a room beneath the library.
Rosa pressed the key into his palm.
"She also told me never to trust Victor Hale."
A heavy thud sounded from the safe room corridor.
Rosa turned.
The door stood open.
Lily was gone.
May you like
On the floor lay the wet yellow coat and one tiny trail of blood leading toward the rear terrace.
THE BRACELET IN THE BLIZZARD
