Chapter 5 - Whispers in the Floorboards
The sound was microscopic—a fragile, breathy whimper that drifted down through the ventilation ducts—but to me, it sounded like an explosion in the dead of night.
Marcus’s fork paused halfway to his mouth. His gray eyebrows twitched upward, his head tilting toward the ceiling like a hound catching a scent in the wind.
""What was that?"" Marcus asked, his voice dropping into that low, interrogative register he had used for thirty years as a homicide detective.
My lungs locked. I gripped the linen napkin in my lap under the mahogany table until my knuckles turned white.
Richard frowned, looking up at the crown molding. ""The pipes in the master bathroom. I’ve told Sarah three times this month to call the plumber. The water hammer in the attic vibrates whenever the boiler kicks on.""
""Didn't sound like a pipe,"" Marcus murmured, slowly lowering his fork. He turned his gaze toward me, his small, dark eyes dissecting my face. ""Sounded like a cat. Or a child.""
""We don't have cats, Marcus,"" I said, forcing a polite, condescending little laugh that sounded remarkably like the socialite Richard had spent twenty years training me to be. ""And unless Ethan managed to sneak back into his bedroom without his father noticing, there hasn't been a child in this house in over a year.""
The mention of Ethan’s name cast an immediate, frigid shadow over the table. Richard’s face darkened, his jaw hardening into granite.
""Don't bring the boy up at dinner, Sarah,"" Richard warned, his voice sharp. ""We've discussed this. He made his bed.""
""I only bring him up because Marcus mentioned a child,"" I replied smoothly, taking a measured sip of the Cabernet. The alcohol burned against the back of my dry throat. ""More wine, Marcus? Or would you prefer to get straight to whatever business brought you out in the rain?""
Marcus held my gaze for three agonizing seconds before breaking it, nodding slowly toward his empty glass. ""Pour the wine, Sarah. We've got a lot of ground to cover tonight.""
I rose, picked up the crystal decanter, and moved around the table. As I poured the deep red liquid into Marcus's glass, my eyes locked on the jacket he had draped over the back of his dining chair. Peeking out from the inner pocket was an official police dossier folder stamped with the county emblem. Sticking out from the top edge was a recent photograph of Ethan, taken from an ATM surveillance camera near the city bus terminal earlier that morning.
They were tracking him. They were closer than Ethan had realized.
""The terminal on Fourth Street,"" Richard said quietly, leaning across the table toward his cousin, abandoning any pretense of secrecy in front of me. He assumed I was too dull, too submissive, to understand what they were discussing. ""Did the ticket agent confirm it?""
""The agent remembered a scruffy kid matching his description buying a one-way voucher toward the border,"" Marcus replied, swirling his wine. ""Carrying an infant under a trench coat. But the bus left twenty minutes before my men arrived. I have two cruisers waiting at the state line terminal to pull him off the bus the moment it crosses the toll bridge.""
""Good,"" Richard whispered, a terrifying look of relief washing over his features. ""When they intercept him, ensure the infant is transported directly to Dr. Sterling’s private clinic in Crestview. No public hospital. No media. No Child Welfare involvement. I’ve already wired the processing fee to Sterling’s offshore account. By tomorrow morning, the paperwork will reflect a safe-haven drop-off, and the child will be placed on a private transport to Europe.""
""And the boy?"" Marcus asked bluntly. ""What do we do with Ethan? He knows about Clara. He knows about the accounts.""
Richard cut a piece of chicken, his hands steady, his demeanor chillingly calm.
""Ethan broke probation rules by leaving the county with an abducted infant. He’s an adult now. File the felony kidnapping charges. Let him spend the next ten years in state prison. No one listens to a convicted felon raving about conspiracies from behind bars.""
My heart stopped. He was going to send our only son to prison for a decade to hide his own crimes.
""Excuse me,"" I said, setting the decanter down on the table. My voice was completely hollow. ""I need to check the dessert in the kitchen.""
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I walked into the kitchen, turned on the faucet to mask any noise, and immediately pulled Clara's prescription bottle and the USB drive from my pocket. There was no more waiting. No more playing the submissive wife.
I reached for the wall-mounted landline, bypassed the local operator, and dialed the direct private extension of Special Agent Thomas Bennett at the Federal Bureau of Investigation—the man whose wife sat beside me on the charity hospital board, and the one law enforcement officer in this state whom Richard Vance did not own.
