Chapter 6 - THE EMPTY NURSERY
Grace did not scream.
That frightened Adrian more than screaming would have.
She simply stopped moving.
“My baby?”
Marcus was already driving.
“Tell us everything,” Adrian ordered into the phone.
The security officer explained.
A delivery van arrived using valid credentials.
Two guards collapsed after drinking coffee from the staff kitchen.
Cameras went offline for ninety seconds.
When they returned, Nora was gone.
So was Mrs. Holloway.
Grace turned toward Adrian.
“No.”
He understood.
“Malcolm said ask Holloway.”
“She wouldn’t hurt Nora.”
“You don't know that.”
“I do.”
Grace had trusted very few people.
Mrs. Holloway was one.
Adrian called every available security contact.
Police were notified.
Roads monitored.
Aircraft tracked.
Money became useful.
Within thirty minutes, dozens of people were searching.
But Grace wanted one thing.
“Take me home.”
“Why?”
“Nora leaves clues.”
Adrian stared.
“She’s three.”
“She leaves things when she wants me to find her.”
At the mansion, they entered the staff sitting room.
Nora’s stuffed rabbit was gone.
Her crayons remained.
Grace searched beneath the table.
A yellow crayon lay broken beside the baseboard.
Then another in the hallway.
Then a blue one near the service entrance.
“She did this before,” Grace said. “At a supermarket. She thought it was a game.”
Outside they found something else.
Nora’s pink hair clip.
Marcus checked tire tracks.
“Vehicle headed east.”
Then Adrian's phone rang.
Richard.
“Do you have her?” Adrian demanded.
“What?”
“Nora.”
Richard went silent.
Then: “They took the child?”
“You know who.”
A long pause.
“Yes.”
Grace grabbed the phone.
“Who?”
Richard’s voice changed.
For the first time, he sounded frightened rather than polished.
“Adrian, listen carefully. James was never supposed to die.”
“That's an interesting defense.”
“I covered it up. I didn't order it.”
“Who did?”
“Your uncle.”
Adrian stopped breathing.
Thomas Cole.
His father’s older brother.
The beloved uncle who had retired from business fifteen years earlier.
The man who taught Adrian to sail.
The man who gave the eulogy at James’s funeral.
The man Malcolm had whispered before dying.
“That’s impossible.”
“Your father discovered Thomas was using Cole Meridian to launder money through international contracts. He tried to force him out. Your mother found out. Then she died.”
Adrian remembered the official cause.
Aneurysm.
Sudden.
Unquestioned.
“James found the records,” Richard continued. “Thomas ordered me to recover them.”
“You killed James.”
“No.”
“You followed him.”
“Yes.”
“His car went off the road.”
“I was behind him. Another vehicle hit him.”
“Whose?”
“Thomas’s driver.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
“Where would he take Nora?”
“Old Cole property.”
“Which one?”
“The original estate in Litchfield County.”
Adrian hung up.
Grace was already moving.
The abandoned Cole estate had belonged to Adrian’s grandparents.
They arrived after dark.
Police surrounded the property discreetly.
Adrian refused to wait.
Inside, the house smelled of dust.
Then a child's voice echoed upstairs.
“Mommy?”
Grace ran.
“Nora!”
They found her in the old nursery.
Alive.
Mrs. Holloway sat beside her.
Grace grabbed her daughter and sobbed.
Adrian stared at the housekeeper.
“You took her?”
“To protect her.”
“By kidnapping her?”
“I had no choice.”
Mrs. Holloway reached beneath the mattress.
She removed a ledger.
“Thomas’s men were already inside your mansion.”
Adrian looked at it.
“This is what James died for?”
“Partly.”
Mrs. Holloway's eyes filled.
“I was your mother's private secretary before I became housekeeper. She discovered what Thomas was doing. She gave me this.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because your father begged me not to. He believed silence would protect you and James.”
“It didn't.”
“No.”
A sound came from downstairs.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Mrs. Holloway went pale.
“He found us.”
A voice drifted up the staircase.
“Adrian?”
Warm.
Familiar.
Uncle Thomas.
“Bring my grandniece downstairs.”
Grace tightened her arms around Nora.
Adrian stepped into the hallway.
Thomas Cole stood below.
Seventy-one years old.
Silver-haired.
Elegant.
Smiling.
Three armed men stood behind him.
Thomas looked almost disappointed.
“You always were the stubborn brother.”
Adrian descended one step.
“You murdered James.”
Thomas sighed.
“No.”
May you like
Then he smiled.
“I merely hired the man who did.”
