Chapter 5 - The Dead Man’s VoiceNathaniel did not believe in ghosts.
Nate trusted none of them with the full truth.
The kidnappers had demanded silence about Claire.
But something bothered him.
Henry’s bedroom window.
The sheets.
The timing.
Everything looked almost too theatrical.
Anna noticed the same thing.
“Henry hates heights,” she whispered while police searched the grounds. “He wouldn’t climb off a balcony.”
“So he was carried.”
“Maybe he never left that way.”
Nate reviewed security footage.
Conveniently, cameras covering the east corridor failed between 9:42 and 10:16 p.m.
Graham controlled the security contractor.
Another coincidence Nate no longer believed.
At eight o’clock, Eleanor entered Nate’s study carrying legal documents.
“My attorney prepared temporary authority.”
Nate looked at her.
“You move fast.”
“My grandson is missing.”
“You already had paperwork ready?”
Her eyes hardened.
“You think I did this?”
“I think I don’t know you anymore.”
Eleanor slapped him.
The sound cracked through the room.
Nate barely reacted.
Tears filled her eyes.
“I buried my daughter.”
“Was Claire murdered?”
His mother went motionless.
There.
Not surprise.
Fear.
Nate lowered his voice.
“You knew.”
Eleanor backed away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Claire found the Bellweather accounts.”
Her face collapsed.
Nate finally understood.
“You knew.”
Eleanor whispered, “Not then.”
“When?”
“After she died.”
“Who killed her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Graham?”
She looked toward the door.
That was answer enough.
Before Nate could continue, Vanessa rushed in.
“They found Henry’s shoe.”
Nate ran.
The shoe had been discovered near the lake.
There was blood on it.
Vanessa collapsed screaming.
Nate nearly did too.
Then Anna appeared behind the police line.
She looked at the shoe.
Then at Nate.
A tiny shake of her head.
Later she pulled him aside.
“That’s not Henry’s blood.”
“How could you know?”
“The cut.”
“What?”
“Henry scraped his heel yesterday in the greenhouse. I put a bandage on it. If that were his shoe, there would be blood inside near the heel.”
The shoe was clean inside.
The blood had been applied outside.
A staged clue.
Nate called the family doctor privately.
The preliminary test confirmed the blood was Type A positive.
Henry was O negative.
Someone wanted them to believe Henry was hurt.
But why?
Nate returned to Henry’s room.
He forced himself to stop thinking like a terrified father.
He studied the room like a businessman studying fraud.
Nothing was disturbed except the bed.
The dinosaur lamp.
Books.
Toy chest.
Then he saw one block placed upside down.
Henry hated upside-down toys.
Nate lifted it.
Underneath was a piece of paper written in green crayon.
MOP LADY SAID HIDE IF BAD MAN COMES.
Nate stared.
Anna.
He found her in the pantry.
“You told Henry to hide?”
Her face changed.
“He remembered?”
“Where?”
“I taught him a game weeks ago.”
“Weeks?”
“I knew someone might eventually come for him.”
“Where is the hiding place?”
Anna led Nate through an abandoned wine cellar.
Behind several racks was a passage Nate had never seen.
It ended in a forgotten servant’s room beneath the old chapel.
Nate opened the door.
Henry was asleep beneath a blanket.
Nate nearly collapsed.
He grabbed his son.
Henry woke.
“Daddy?”
Nate held him so tightly the boy protested.
“Can’t breathe.”
Nate laughed and cried at once.
Anna knelt.
“Henry, did anyone see you come here?”
“No.”
“Did someone come into your bedroom?”
He nodded.
“Mr. Graham.”
Nate froze.
“What did he say?”
“He said Grandma wanted me downstairs.”
“Then?”
“I did the hiding game.”
Henry had crawled through the service door before Graham could take him.
The kidnappers had never possessed him.
The faint crying on the phone had been prerecorded.
Nate’s fear transformed into fury.
But Anna stopped him.
“Let them believe they succeeded.”
Nate understood.
If Graham believed Henry was under his control, he would expose himself further.
They secretly moved Henry to an unused cottage on the far edge of the Ashford property with one person Nate trusted completely.
Samuel Brooks.
Nate’s childhood driver.
A retired Marine who had served the family for thirty years.
Then Nate returned to the manor.
At ten o’clock, Graham arrived.
Vanessa sat beside Eleanor.
The legal papers waited on the desk.
Graham smiled sympathetically.
“Just temporary control, Nate.”
Nate looked at him.
Then signed.
Graham visibly relaxed.
Nate handed over the pen.
“Bring my son home.”
“You’ve done the right thing.”
Five minutes later, Graham stepped into the corridor.
Anna, hidden behind the service wall, recorded his phone call.
“It’s done,” Graham said.
A voice answered.
Not Eleanor.
Not Vanessa.
A man.
Graham continued.
“He signed everything. We move the remaining assets tonight.”
The other man said something too faint to hear.
Then Graham laughed.
“No, the boy isn’t necessary anymore.”
Anna’s face went white.
Graham added:
“Once Nathaniel takes the medication Reeves gives him, everyone will believe the suicide.”
Nate listened to the recording twice.
They never intended to return Henry.
And by tomorrow, they intended Nate to be dead.
But one question remained.
Who was giving Graham orders?
Anna enhanced the audio.
They heard three more words from the unknown man.
Three words that made Nate sit down.
“Just like Claire.”
Nate knew that voice.
He had grown up hearing it.
May you like
It belonged to his father.
The father Nathaniel Ashford had buried seven years ago.
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