Chapter 3 - A Secret Beneath the Kitchen Floor
Vincent Calder had seen photographs of hostages before.
He had received them from rivals, debt collectors, and men who believed threatening someone weaker would make them stronger.
Usually, he felt anger.
This time, he felt something different.
Shame.
Because the young woman standing before him had saved his life, and someone was punishing her for it.
Lena stared at the photograph.
For several seconds, she didn't move.
Then her knees buckled.
Vincent caught her before she hit the floor.
“Sophie,” she whispered.
He guided her into a chair.
“How old is she?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Does she live with you?”
“No. She's in nursing school. She came home for the weekend.”
Lena pressed both hands against her mouth.
“She wasn't supposed to be there.”
Vincent crouched before her.
“Listen carefully. I will find your sister.”
She shook her head.
“You don't understand. Whoever did this knows where I live. They know about Sophie. They know everything.”
“Then they've made a mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“They've given me a reason to find them.”
Marcus returned with information from the building's security cameras.
Two men wearing maintenance uniforms had entered Lena's apartment building at 7:42 p.m.
They left eleven minutes later.
One carried a large equipment bag.
The other escorted a woman in a hooded sweatshirt.
Lena recognized Sophie's shoes.
White sneakers with pink laces.
She had bought them for her sister's birthday.
Vincent watched Lena's expression collapse.
“Marcus,” he said, “find the van.”
“Already working on it.”
“And no one tells Nathan.”
Marcus paused.
“Sir?”
“You heard me.”
Lena lifted her head.
“You think your cousin did this?”
“I think someone inside my house knew you would be vulnerable tonight.”
“That's not an answer.”
“No,” Vincent admitted. “It isn't.”
An hour later, Lena sat inside Vincent's private study, wrapped in a blanket she didn't remember accepting.
The room smelled of leather, cedar, and expensive whiskey.
She hated how safe it felt.
She hated even more that she needed that feeling.
Vincent entered carrying two cups of coffee.
He placed one before her.
“No sugar,” he said.
“How did you know?”
“I asked the kitchen.”
She stared at him.
“Are you always this controlling?”
“Usually.”
Despite everything, a small laugh escaped her.
It disappeared immediately.
Vincent sat opposite her.
“Tell me about your grandmother.”
Lena frowned.
“Why?”
“You recognized something in that sauce because of her. I need to understand what you know.”
Lena looked into her coffee.
“My grandmother, Margaret Brooks, raised Sophie and me after our parents died.”
“How?”
“A car accident. I was seventeen. Sophie was seven.”
“I'm sorry.”
“She had a greenhouse behind her house. Herbs, flowers, medicinal plants. She knew their scents better than most people know their own families.”
“Did she work in medicine?”
“Not officially. She was a botanical researcher before she retired.”
Vincent leaned forward.
“Where?”
“At a private laboratory outside Albany. Why?”
He didn't answer immediately.
“What was the laboratory called?”
Lena hesitated.
“Blackthorn Research.”
Vincent's expression changed.
Barely.
But she saw it.
“You know it.”
“Maybe.”
“Don't lie to me.”
His eyebrows rose.
Most people wouldn't dare speak to him that way.
Lena no longer cared.
“My sister is missing. If you know something, tell me.”
Vincent stood and walked toward a cabinet.
He unlocked a drawer and removed an old photograph.
He placed it on the desk.
Lena leaned forward.
The photograph showed four men standing outside a laboratory.
One was much younger than the others.
Dark-haired.
Broad-shouldered.
Vincent.
Beside him stood an older man with silver hair.
And behind them, partly hidden by a doorway, stood a woman in a green cardigan.
Lena stopped breathing.
“Grandma?”
Vincent watched her.
“You recognize her?”
“That's Margaret Brooks.”
The photograph trembled in Lena's hands.
“What was she doing with you?”
Vincent sat down.
“Fifteen years ago, Blackthorn Research developed botanical compounds for pharmaceutical companies. My father invested in the business.”
“What kind of compounds?”
“Some legitimate. Some questionable.”
Lena looked at the photograph again.
“My grandmother never mentioned you.”
“She probably had good reasons.”
“What happened to the laboratory?”
“It burned down.”
Lena frowned.
“No. Grandma told us it closed because the investors withdrew.”
Vincent's expression darkened.
“The official story was a fire caused by faulty wiring. Three researchers died.”
“Three?”
“One of them was my father.”
Lena looked up sharply.
Vincent continued.
“My father had gone there to investigate missing money. The building caught fire that night. The investigation concluded it was an accident.”
“And you believed that?”
“For a long time.”
Lena studied the photograph.
Her grandmother stood near Vincent's father.
Not smiling.
Not relaxed.
She looked frightened.
Suddenly, Lena remembered something.
A conversation from years earlier.
Her grandmother had been sitting at the kitchen table, holding a sealed envelope.
“If anyone ever asks about Blackthorn,” she had whispered, “tell them I burned everything.”
At the time, Lena had been thirteen.
She hadn't understood.
Now she did.
“Vincent,” she said slowly, “my grandmother left me something.”
His attention sharpened.
“What?”
“A recipe box.”
“Where is it?”
“My apartment.”
Marcus entered before Vincent could respond.
“We checked. The apartment was stripped. Whoever searched it took papers, electronics, photographs, and several wooden boxes.”
Lena's stomach dropped.
“They took it.”
Marcus shook his head.
“Maybe not everything.”
He placed a photograph on the desk.
It showed Lena's kitchen.
The floorboards beneath the refrigerator had been pulled up.
A rectangular opening was visible.
Vincent studied the image.
“Why would someone search beneath the floor?”
Lena stared.
Because she knew something the intruders didn't.
Her grandmother's recipe box had contained a handwritten note.
A note Lena had found after the funeral.
It read:
When the kitchen no longer feels safe, look beneath the place where bread was first made.
Lena had always assumed it referred to her grandmother's old farmhouse.
The house she and Sophie had inherited.
The house that had remained empty for seven years.
She looked at Vincent.
“I know where they should have searched.”
Forty minutes later, Vincent's armored SUV pulled through the gates of the abandoned Brooks farmhouse.
Lena led him into the kitchen.
The room smelled of dust and old wood.
She knelt beside the original brick oven.
One loose floorboard lifted beneath her fingers.
Underneath lay a metal box.
Inside were documents, a flash drive, and a photograph of Margaret Brooks holding a newborn baby.
On the back, written in faded ink, were four words.
THE CHILD MUST LIVE.
Vincent took the photograph.
His face went completely still.
Lena noticed his hands trembling.
“Who is that baby?”
Vincent looked at her.
Then at the photograph.
May you like
Finally, he whispered something that made her blood turn cold.
“My father had this same picture.”
