Chapter 11 - THE TRAITOR IN THE HOUSE
Stellan locked down the mansion with everyone inside.
No phones.
No cars leaving.
No staff dismissed early.
Fern stayed in my arms.
Mrs. Thornbury gathered twenty-three employees in the ballroom.
Stellan walked down the line asking the same question.
“Where were you at 10:42?”
Cook. Driver. Housekeeper. Guard. Gardener.
Every answer had camera support except one.
Mrs. Thornbury.
She had been alone in the linen room.
I stared at her.
The woman who gave me this job. The woman who quietly brought Fern formula when my paycheck ran short.
She looked insulted.
“I have served this family for thirty-one years.”
Stellan’s voice stayed calm. “Then you understand why I ask.”
Elias searched her room.
They found nothing.
Then a young guard named Tomas Reed tried to run.
He made it to the garage before Elias caught him.
In Tomas’s locker they found cash, a burner phone, and photos of Fern.
Stellan’s men dragged him into the office.
“Who pays you?” Stellan asked.
Tomas shook so badly he could barely speak.
“Victor.”
“Are you the Shepherd?”
“No.”
“Who is?”
“I don’t know.”
Stellan leaned closer.
Tomas blurted, “I only left the carving. I never touched the baby.”
“Who told you where the nursery was?”
Tomas looked toward the hallway.
Someone fired through the office window.
Glass exploded.
Stellan threw himself over Fern and me.
Elias pulled his weapon.
A second shot hit Tomas in the chest.
He fell before he could speak.
The shooter vanished across the east garden.
Police and Cross security flooded the grounds.
Tomas was alive, barely.
As paramedics lifted him, he grabbed Stellan’s sleeve.
“Shepherd...”
Stellan bent closer.
Tomas whispered two words.
“Not staff.”
Then he lost consciousness.
Stellan looked at me.
If the Shepherd was not staff, there were only a handful of people with unrestricted access to the mansion.
May you like
One of them was Stellan’s own sister, Celeste.
And she had just arrived at the front door.
