Chapter 2 - The Locked Gate
Vanessa made it down one flight before security sealed the estate.
The front doors locked with a heavy magnetic click.
She spun around. “Alexander, open these doors!”
“No.”
He stood at the top of the staircase with his phone in one hand and Noah’s blanket in the other.
I stayed behind him, holding the baby.
Vanessa’s face changed again. No tears now.
“You don’t understand what you signed.”
Alexander descended slowly.
“Then explain it.”
She laughed once. “Ask Nolan.”
He called.
Straight to voicemail.
Security found Vanessa’s purse near the foyer table. Inside were two passports, forty thousand dollars in cash, and a prepaid phone.
Alexander looked at me. “Call the police.”
Vanessa stepped forward. “If you do that, you lose everything.”
“What?”
“Claire’s shares.”
The name hit the room like broken glass.
Claire had been Alexander’s first wife. Noah’s mother. Dead eleven months.
Vanessa folded her arms.
“Your precious late wife owned twenty-eight percent of Whitmore Dynamics. Her shares were placed in trust for Noah. If Noah dies before age five, control reverts under the marital succession amendment.”
Alexander stared at her.
“I never approved that.”
“You signed it.”
“No.”
She smiled. “You sign what Nolan puts in front of you.”
The police sirens were already approaching.
Then Alexander’s phone buzzed.
A text from Nolan Pierce.
DON’T INVOLVE POLICE. CLAIRE’S DEATH WILL BE REOPENED.
Alexander read it twice.
May you like
I saw the color leave his face.
“Rachel,” he whispered, “Claire didn’t fall down those stairs by accident.”
