Chapter 4 - The Night Ellie Went Missing
Nathan's driver reached Mercer House in eleven minutes.
It should have taken twenty-three.
Clara did not speak.
She sat forward with both hands pressed against the dashboard as though she could physically pull the car faster.
Nathan made fourteen calls.
Security gates closed.
House searched.
Grounds searched.
Cameras checked.
No vehicle had left after the fire alarm.
That mattered.
Ellie might still be inside the property.
Unless someone had prepared another route.
The alarm began at 3:42 a.m.
A smoke canister had been placed in a linen room.
While guards responded, someone used Nathan's personal override code to unlock the east service corridor.
Only five people knew that code.
Nathan.
Cal.
Mrs. Hargrove.
Patrick.
Vivian.
Nathan called Vivian.
No answer.
Patrick.
No answer.
The car stopped before the front doors.
Clara was out before the driver could open them.
“Ellie!”
Nathan followed.
The east wing smelled faintly of smoke.
Mrs. Hargrove stood crying in the corridor.
“I left her for two minutes.”
Clara grabbed her.
“Where?”
“She was sleeping. Atlas was beside the bed.”
“Where is he?”
“Gone.”
Nathan looked at Cal.
“Dog wouldn't leave her.”
“Exactly.”
They moved room by room.
Nothing.
Then Nathan noticed something near the service staircase.
Silver glitter.
One tiny streak along the wall.
Ellie's fairy wings.
Nathan crouched.
Another speck two steps down.
“She left a trail.”
Clara covered her mouth.
“Smart girl.”
They followed glitter to the basement.
At the old wine room, it disappeared.
Nathan pushed the door.
Locked.
He kicked once.
The frame cracked.
Again.
Door opened.
Darkness.
“Ellie?”
Nothing.
Clara rushed forward.
Nathan caught her.
“Wait.”
He drew his weapon.
Cal moved beside him.
They entered.
Empty shelves.
Crates.
Then a sound.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Clara whispered, “Atlas.”
Nathan moved toward the rear wall.
An old service door stood partly concealed behind shelving.
It had not been used in years.
Opened.
Beyond was a narrow tunnel built during Prohibition when Nathan's grandfather had used Mercer House to move liquor.
Patrick knew about it.
Nathan had forgotten it existed.
Glitter marked the floor.
They ran.
The tunnel ended near the greenhouse.
Outside, Atlas lay beside the hedge.
Nathan's blood froze.
“Atlas.”
Clara dropped beside him.
The mastiff lifted his head weakly.
Blood darkened the fur near his shoulder.
Not a gunshot.
A cut.
Someone had struck him.
Clara touched him.
“Where's Ellie?”
Atlas struggled upright.
Then limped toward the far side of the greenhouse.
Nathan followed.
A small storage shed.
The door was locked from outside.
Clara screamed her daughter's name.
Nathan broke the latch.
Ellie sat inside clutching her broken wand.
Alive.
Clara collapsed.
“Baby!”
Ellie ran into her arms.
Nathan looked away.
Something in his chest hurt too much.
Clara kissed Ellie's face repeatedly.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did somebody touch you?”
“A man tried.”
Nathan crouched.
“What man?”
Ellie looked at him.
“Mr. Patrick.”
Everything stopped.
“You're sure?”
“Yes.”
“He said you got sick and Mama needed me.”
Nathan glanced at Clara.
Ellie continued.
“But Atlas growled.”
“What happened?”
“Mr. Patrick got mad.”
Her lip trembled.
“He kicked Atlas.”
Nathan's hand closed.
Clara saw.
“Nathan.”
One word.
Enough.
Owen's voice returned.
Think first.
Nathan breathed.
“What happened next, Ellie?”
“Atlas bit his coat.”
Despite everything, Cal almost smiled.
Ellie continued.
“I ran.”
“You hid here?”
She nodded.
“The fairy door.”
Clara frowned.
“What?”
Ellie pointed toward the tunnel.
“I saw it yesterday when Atlas sniffed the wall.”
Children.
They saw everything adults dismissed.
“Why did Patrick lock you in?”
“He couldn't catch me. Another man did.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“What did he look like?”
“Had a hat.”
Nathan remained patient.
“Anything else?”
Ellie looked at his hand.
“A ring like yours.”
Nathan wore a Mercer signet ring.
Only senior family men received one.
Patrick.
Nathan.
Two cousins.
And Cal.
Nathan looked toward his security chief.
Cal immediately understood.
His face hardened.
Ellie noticed.
“Not Mr. Cal.”
Everyone froze.
“How do you know?”
“His is shiny.”
She pointed at Cal's silver ring.
“The other man's was black.”
Nathan knew one black Mercer ring.
His cousin Evan.
Patrick's son.
Thirty-four.
Manager of Warehouse Twelve.
Daniel Walsh's former supervisor.
Nathan stood.
Patrick had involved his own son.
Clara held Ellie.
“What did they want?”
Ellie frowned.
“Mr. Patrick asked where Mama's red box was.”
Daniel's toolbox.
Nathan stared at Clara.
They knew.
Somebody had been watching the apartment.
Patrick realized Daniel's evidence survived.
He came for Ellie because he thought she might know where her mother kept it.
Six years old.
Nathan's restraint thinned.
Cal saw.
“Don't.”
Nathan looked at him.
“Owen asked you to think first.”
“Do not use my brother against me.”
“Then use Ellie.”
Nathan's jaw tightened.
Cal pointed toward the child.
“She is alive because she thought. Atlas is alive because he protected her. We have evidence.”
Nathan looked at Clara.
She was crying silently into Ellie's hair.
“What do you need?” Nathan asked.
Clara looked up.
“Get Atlas help.”
Nathan nearly laughed.
“That's it?”
“For right now.”
Nathan called the veterinarian who had cared for Atlas for eleven years.
He arrived twenty minutes later.
The cut required stitches.
Two ribs might be bruised.
But Atlas would live.
Ellie refused to leave him.
The veterinarian worked while she held the dog's paw.
Nathan stood behind her.
“You're very brave.”
Ellie looked up.
“I was scared.”
“That doesn't mean you weren't brave.”
She considered that.
“Were you scared?”
Nathan looked at Atlas.
Then Clara.
“Yes.”
That seemed to satisfy her.
Later, after Ellie finally slept in Clara's arms, Nathan found Cal in the study.
“We move tonight.”
“Patrick?”
“No.”
Nathan looked at the house.
“Clara and Ellie.”
“To where?”
“Lake property.”
Patrick knew about Nathan's Palm Beach properties.
Not the cabin Owen bought quietly twelve years earlier in North Carolina.
Nathan had kept it.
No staff.
No company records.
Cal nodded.
“I'll arrange it.”
“I go with them.”
Cal stared.
“Patrick will notice.”
“I want him to.”
“You're leaving Miami?”
“For forty-eight hours.”
“Your organization—”
“Can survive two days.”
Nathan looked toward the hallway.
“My family didn't.”
Cal said nothing.
Nathan realized what he had called them.
My family.
Clara and Ellie.
He did not correct himself.
At six in the morning, Clara entered.
Ellie slept upstairs.
Atlas sedated beside her bed.
“Nathan.”
“Yes?”
“What happens now?”
“We leave.”
“We?”
“You, Ellie, Atlas and me.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Where?”
“Somewhere Patrick doesn't know.”
“I can't disappear.”
“He tried kidnapping your daughter.”
“I know.”
Her voice cracked.
Nathan softened.
“Clara.”
“I spent two years being afraid after Daniel died.”
She wiped her eyes.
“I finally built something normal for Ellie.”
“I understand.”
“No, you have houses everywhere. Cars. Security. People who answer calls at three in the morning.”
“You think that makes fear easier?”
She looked at him.
“No.”
Nathan approached.
“Patrick took my brother from me.”
Her face softened.
“He took Daniel from you.”
“Yes.”
“He doesn't get Ellie.”
Clara closed her eyes.
Nathan lowered his voice.
“I promise.”
She looked up.
“You shouldn't make promises you can't control.”
“I control enough.”
A tiny smile appeared.
“There he is.”
“Who?”
“The terrifying man everyone whispers about.”
Nathan almost smiled.
“What did you think before?”
“That you were less terrifying when holding an apple juice box.”
He laughed.
She did too.
For one strange moment, with danger surrounding them and dawn entering the windows, the room felt warm.
Nathan noticed Clara was close.
Too close.
Her hair had fallen loose.
No uniform.
No formal distance.
Just a frightened mother who had trusted him with the most important thing in her life.
Nathan wanted to touch her face.
He did not.
Clara seemed to realize the same thing.
She stepped back.
“Ellie still has another wish.”
Nathan looked away.
“She keeps reminding me.”
“She takes contracts seriously.”
“So do I.”
Clara smiled.
“I've noticed.”
Two hours later, they left Miami.
Nathan used a plain SUV.
No convoy.
Cal stayed behind to make Patrick believe Nathan remained at Mercer House.
Ellie sat in the back beside Atlas.
Clara sat next to Nathan.
For the first hour, Ellie talked endlessly.
Then she slept.
Clara stared out the window.
“Why aren't you married?”
Nathan looked at her.
“That is unexpectedly personal.”
“You know my dead husband's employment history.”
“Fair.”
He drove another mile.
“I almost was once.”
“Before Vivian?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She decided she preferred a banker in Boston.”
Clara winced.
“Ouch.”
“I had Patrick buy his bank six months later.”
She turned.
“You didn't.”
“No.”
A pause.
“I thought about it.”
Clara laughed.
Nathan smiled.
“What about Vivian?”
“What about her?”
“Do you love her?”
Nathan stared at the road.
“No.”
Clara became quiet.
“Does she know?”
“She probably does.”
“Why marry her?”
Nathan considered the question.
“Because loneliness becomes less embarrassing if you call it practicality.”
Clara looked at him.
Ellie's words from the study returned.
That's what lonely people say.
Nathan sighed.
“Your daughter is infecting you.”
“She gets it from me.”
“Dangerous.”
Clara smiled.
Several hours later, Nathan's phone rang.
Cal.
“Patrick made a move.”
Nathan immediately became alert.
“What?”
“He called an emergency meeting of the Mercer board.”
“Why?”
“He says you're medically compromised.”
Nathan's jaw tightened.
“The whiskey.”
“Yes.”
Cal continued.
“He's claiming you've been abusing prescription medication and left Miami during a paranoid episode.”
Clara looked toward Nathan.
“He planned this,” she whispered.
Nathan nodded.
The sedative had not only been designed to knock him unconscious.
Patrick had intended to create evidence.
A drugged Nathan.
Doctors.
A public collapse at a gala.
Then a story about instability.
If Nathan became legally incapacitated, Mercer Holdings' emergency voting authority transferred temporarily to two people.
Patrick Mercer.
And Nathan's future spouse.
Vivian Cole.
Nathan finally saw the whole strategy.
They had never planned to kill him.
Dead men created wars.
An incapacitated man created signatures.
Cal spoke again.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“Vivian is supporting Patrick's claim.”
Nathan expected pain.
He felt none.
Perhaps because somewhere between the drugged whiskey and Ellie's broken fairy wings, Vivian had already ceased being his fiancée.
“What did she say?”
“That she's frightened for you.”
Clara muttered something unkind.
Nathan almost smiled.
“When's the vote?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
Nathan looked at Clara.
Then at Ellie sleeping behind them.
Patrick believed Nathan was running.
Weak.
Confused.
He believed Vivian would become the legal bridge to Nathan's empire.
Good.
Nathan had spent eleven years teaching people fear.
Patrick had apparently forgotten who his best student was.
“Let them vote.”
Cal hesitated.
“Nate?”
“Don't stop anything.”
“You'll lose temporary control.”
“Exactly.”
May you like
Nathan smiled for the first time all morning.
“Let's see what they steal when they think nobody is watching.”
