Chapter 5
Nathan broke.
Not loudly.
Not like in movies.
He just stopped breathing for a second, then moved so fast Detective Monroe had to block him from tearing down the hallway.
“Olivia!” he shouted.
Hospital security locked the floor.
Doors sealed.
Elevators stopped.
Cameras were pulled up.
I ran with Daniel Pierce to the stairwell because I knew Olivia.
When she was scared, she hid low.
Closets.
Benches.
Corners.
Places adults forgot to check.
“Olivia!” I called. “It’s Maria!”
Nothing.
Nathan’s voice echoed from the other end of the floor.
Security footage showed a woman in blue scrubs walking past the waiting room.
She had a mask on.
Her badge was turned backward.
Olivia followed her, holding the stuffed rabbit.
No struggle.
That meant the woman had said something Olivia believed.
My stomach twisted.
“She told her Emily was awake,” I whispered.
Detective Monroe looked at me.
“What?”
“That’s the only way Olivia would leave me.”
The camera followed them to the service elevator.
Then the feed cut.
Daniel swore.
“Someone killed the camera.”
Monroe said, “Inside help.”
I turned toward the nurses’ station.
A young nurse was crying.
Not normal crying.
Guilty crying.
I walked to her.
“What did they tell you?”
She flinched.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I grabbed the counter.
“What did they tell you about the little girl?”
Detective Monroe stepped beside me.
The nurse broke.
“She said she was Mrs. Whitmore’s private nurse. She said the family wanted privacy. She gave me five hundred dollars to look away for two minutes.”
Nathan heard.
He turned so slowly the nurse stepped back.
“My daughter is missing because you accepted five hundred dollars?”
She sobbed.
“I didn’t know.”
His voice shook.
“She is five.”
Then Emily’s room alarm started screaming.
We all ran.
Emily was sitting up in bed, tearing at her IV lines.
“Nathan,” she gasped. “Olivia.”
He rushed to her.
“We’re finding her.”
Emily grabbed his shirt.
“Victoria has the old chapel tunnel.”
“What tunnel?”
“The family mausoleum connects to the parking garage. Your mother showed Grant when we were engaged.”
Nathan looked at Daniel.
“Take me there.”
Emily turned to me.
“Maria.”
I stepped close.
Her eyes were wild.
“Dollhouse basement.”
“I already found the watch.”
“No,” she said. “Basement.”
Then doctors pushed us out.
I ran to the blue room evidence photos on Detective Monroe’s tablet.
The dollhouse basement.
I zoomed in.
There was a tiny toy trunk I hadn’t noticed.
“Go back to the estate,” I told Daniel.
He stared.
“Now?”
“Emily hid more.”
Nathan looked torn between the hospital and the search.
Detective Monroe made the decision.
“Pierce, take Maria. I’ll go with Mr. Whitmore to the tunnel.”
We split.
At the estate, the blue room had police tape across the door.
Daniel cut through it.
I dropped to my knees in front of the dollhouse and opened the tiny basement trunk.
Inside was a real key wrapped in tissue.
A label in Emily’s handwriting.
Boat shed.
Daniel and I ran.
The Whitmore estate sat on a private lake behind the gardens.
The boat shed smelled like gasoline and wet wood.
The key opened a metal cabinet.
Inside were passports.
Cash.
A burner phone.
And a tablet.
The tablet had one video file.
Emily again.
“If they take Olivia,” she said, voice trembling, “they will use the lake.”
Behind her voice, I heard Olivia laughing in an old recording.
Then Emily said, “Victoria taught her to call the boathouse her secret castle.”
Daniel grabbed his radio.
“North lake! Move now!”
We heard an engine start outside.
I ran to the dock.
A small boat was pulling away through the mist.
Olivia stood in the back, crying.
May you like
Victoria held her by the shoulders.
And Grant was driving.
