Chapter 5 - Grace
I told myself Daniel was confused.
Drugged.
Traumatized.
Nine years in captivity would damage anyone’s memory.
That explanation lasted until he gave me an address.
A farmhouse outside Rockford.
“She was there,” Daniel said from his hospital bed.
Doctors had removed enough sedatives from his system to let him speak clearly.
I sat beside him.
Nathan stood near the door.
Lily and Emma were safely back at Blackwell House under heavier protection than some heads of state received.
“Start from the beginning.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“I can’t give you everything tonight.”
“Give me Grace.”
His jaw tightened.
“She helped me disappear.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Not from you.”
“That sounds exactly like what you did.”
“Marcus.”
“For nine years I thought you were dead.”
“I know.”
“You let me believe that.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Everyone has a choice.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“That sounds like Dad.”
I almost hit him.
He saw it.
“Go ahead.”
Instead I stood and walked toward the window.
Rain streaked across downtown Chicago.
“Tell me.”
Daniel swallowed.
“Dad discovered Anna was pregnant.”
“I know.”
“He told me she would never be accepted into the family.”
“I know that too.”
“Then I found the financial records.”
“Vale.”
Daniel nodded.
“Dad wasn’t just laundering money.”
“What else?”
“He was paying for clinical trials.”
“Illegal?”
“Human experimentation.”
Nathan shifted.
I turned.
Daniel continued.
“Vale ran psychiatric facilities. He tested memory-altering drugs on patients who couldn’t fight back.”
My stomach twisted.
“Why would Dad fund that?”
“Control.”
Of course.
That single word sounded like Charles Blackwell.
“Dad believed loyalty could be engineered.”
“Drugged.”
“Yes.”
Daniel rubbed his wrists where old scars circled the skin.
“He wanted Vale’s techniques for witnesses. Employees. Anyone who knew too much.”
“And you found evidence.”
“Enough to put them away forever.”
“What happened?”
“I copied everything.”
“Where?”
Daniel looked at me.
“The moon goes under the lake.”
Emma’s message.
“What does that mean?”
“Our necklaces.”
“I have the sun.”
“Mine contains a storage chip.”
I stared.
“Inside the necklace?”
“Anna designed it with a jeweler.”
“Where is it?”
“Grace had it.”
My throat tightened.
“Why Grace?”
“Because she was the only person Dad didn’t suspect.”
That hurt in a way I couldn’t articulate.
My wife had been part of this.
Before our marriage?
During it?
“How did she know Anna?”
“They were half-sisters.”
I froze.
“Grace told me Anna was her sister.”
“Half-sisters. Same mother. Different fathers.”
“Why did Grace never tell me?”
“Anna wanted no connection to the Blackwells after what happened.”
“What happened?”
“Dad threatened Emma before she was born.”
I closed my eyes.
Daniel continued.
“I confronted him at warehouse twelve.”
“Elaine was there.”
“So you found her.”
“She was shot.”
“Vale?”
Daniel nodded faintly.
“Vale arranged everything.”
“What happened at the warehouse?”
“Dad wanted the evidence.”
“And you?”
“I refused.”
“Then you were shot.”
“Vale’s man hit me.”
Daniel touched his side.
“They thought I would die.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Grace followed us.”
My eyes snapped toward him.
“Grace was there?”
“She had tracked my car.”
Why?
How much had she hidden from me?
“She found me before Dad’s people could finish the job.”
“Then why didn’t she call me?”
“She tried.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“Your phone never received the call.”
“How do you know?”
“Because your father answered.”
The room became very quiet.
Daniel stared at me.
“He had your line rerouted.”
I remembered that night.
A family dinner.
My father insisted I stay.
He kept my phone because he said business could wait.
Grace had supposedly been visiting a friend.
Daniel was missing by morning.
My father had manipulated all of us.
“What happened next?”
“Grace moved me to a private doctor.”
“And Anna?”
“She disappeared.”
“Then?”
“I was supposed to leave the country.”
“But Vale found you.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Someone inside Grace’s circle betrayed us.”
“Who?”
“I never knew.”
“And Grace?”
Daniel looked away.
“For years I believed she died.”
My chest tightened.
“She did.”
“No.”
“Her car went off a bridge. Police found blood. Her wedding ring. Dental remains.”
“Vale controls medical facilities.”
I felt sick.
Daniel continued.
“Six months ago, he brought her into my room.”
“Why?”
“To break me.”
I stepped closer.
“What condition was she in?”
“Alive.”
“That’s not enough.”
“Thin. Weak. But alive.”
“Did she recognize you?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Daniel’s expression cracked.
“She asked whether Lily was safe.”
I turned away before anyone could see what happened to my face.
My wife.
Alive.
For seven years.
Somewhere.
“And me?”
Daniel’s answer came softly.
“She asked about you too.”
I looked back.
“What did you tell her?”
“That I didn’t know.”
Daniel’s eyes filled.
“She started crying.”
The anger inside me had nowhere to go.
My father was dead.
Vale was in custody.
Grace was missing.
Anna was dead.
And two little girls upstairs had inherited the wreckage.
“Address.”
Daniel recited the farmhouse location again.
Nathan immediately assembled a team.
We left before dawn.
The farmhouse stood isolated beyond miles of wet fields.
No cars.
No visible guards.
But the front door was unlocked.
We entered.
The house was empty.
Almost.
Someone had lived there recently.
Tea mug in the sink.
Fresh food.
Medical supplies.
A woman’s sweater over a chair.
I picked it up.
Grace’s perfume.
Faint.
Maybe imagination.
Maybe memory.
Then Nathan called from upstairs.
“Marcus.”
I entered a bedroom.
On the wall were photographs.
Hundreds.
Lily at school.
Lily at birthdays.
Lily entering Blackwell House.
Me leaving the office.
Me at Grace’s grave.
Someone had watched us for years.
At the center was a handwritten note.
MARCUS,
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, DANIEL IS FREE.
I knew the handwriting.
Grace.
My knees nearly failed.
I pulled the letter down.
Marcus,
I don’t know how much time I have. Vale moves me whenever he thinks Daniel is close to breaking.
You will hate me.
You should.
But please hate me after you understand.
I did not abandon you.
The night my car went into the river, I was trying to reach you.
Vale took me before I could.
The woman they buried was not me.
I have tried to escape twice.
The second time cost another person her life.
So I stopped running until I could find a way that would not kill Lily.
If Daniel is alive and free, then Emma may be safe.
Anna trusted me with Emma’s existence because your father would have destroyed that child to control Daniel.
Please protect her.
Please protect Lily.
And if you still remember anything good about me—
believe that I loved you every single day.
Grace
I read it three times.
Then I noticed the final line.
P.S. Do not trust Margaret.
My blood froze.
Nathan read it over my shoulder.
“Estate manager?”
Margaret.
The woman who had worked for my family since I was a teenager.
The woman currently inside my house.
With Lily.
And Emma.
I grabbed my phone.
No signal.
Nathan tried his.
“Jammer.”
We ran outside.
The vehicles wouldn’t start.
Electronic systems dead.
Trap.
A speaker hidden somewhere in the farmhouse clicked on.
Vale’s recorded voice filled the room.
“If you’re hearing this, Marcus, you finally found Grace’s little sanctuary.”
I looked around.
A red light blinked.
Then another.
Nathan’s face changed.
“Fire system.”
Smoke poured from vents.
Vale continued.
“You always were predictable.”
Flames erupted downstairs.
We rushed toward the back exit.
Locked.
Nathan smashed a window.
Security pulled us out moments before the lower floor exploded.
I hit the muddy ground hard.
My first thought wasn’t pain.
It was Lily.
I grabbed Nathan’s satellite emergency phone from the vehicle kit.
Finally a signal.
Blackwell House security answered.
“Status?”
Static.
Then a guard shouted.
“Sir, we have a breach!”
“What breach?”
“Margaret Ellis is gone.”
My stomach dropped.
“Where are the girls?”
Another silence.
“Sir…”
“Where are Lily and Emma?”
“Lily is here.”
Relief hit.
“And Emma?”
“Missing.”
I closed my eyes.
Margaret had taken Daniel’s daughter.
Exactly as Grace had warned.
Then Lily’s voice came over the phone.
“Daddy?”
“I’m here.”
“Margaret said Emma wanted to see her mommy.”
I gripped the phone.
“Where did they go?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Lily added:
“But Emma left Teddy.”
My mind raced.
“Teddy had a tracker.”
“We removed it.”
“Not that one.”
“What?”
Lily whispered proudly.
“I put my AirTag inside him.”
For the first time that morning, I smiled.
My daughter had just outsmarted everyone.
“Where does it show?”
There was tapping.
Then Lily read the location.
Nathan entered it into his phone.
The map loaded.
My smile disappeared.
Margaret wasn’t heading toward Canada.
She was heading toward Lake Michigan.
May you like
Toward an abandoned Blackwell marina.
The same place Daniel’s car had been found nine years ago.
