Chapter 14 - The Price of Silence
Dominic returned to the estate like a storm.
Every gate was sealed.
Every employee was searched.
Traffic cameras across Lake Forest were accessed within minutes.
Money could not buy back two lost years.
But it could make an entire city start looking.
Clara stood in Noah's empty bedroom.
His blanket lay on the floor.
One shoe remained beside the bed.
She stared at it.
Dominic entered.
"Clara."
She turned.
"This happened because we pushed too fast."
"No."
"They knew he was talking."
"Clara."
"They took him because he was finally talking."
Dominic stepped closer.
"Look at me."
She did.
"This is not yours to carry."
His voice was controlled.
"My failures brought these people into his life."
Clara swallowed.
"So we get him back."
Mateo entered holding security footage.
A van had exited through a maintenance gate during the confusion.
The gate code belonged to Mrs. Hargrove.
Dominic's face turned murderous.
They went to her room.
It was empty.
The guard outside was unconscious.
An old service panel stood open.
Mrs. Hargrove had escaped through the wall passages.
Dominic almost lost control.
Then Clara saw something on the desk.
The torn pieces of the fifty-thousand-dollar check.
Mrs. Hargrove had kept them.
Beneath them was a note.
CLARA WILL UNDERSTAND THE SONG.
Clara read it twice.
"What song?"
Dominic asked.
She remembered.
The melody behind the north-wing door.
Elena's lullaby.
Clara searched the old audio files in the hidden room.
One recording was longer than the others.
Near the end, Elena stopped singing.
Then a man's voice spoke faintly in the background.
"Take him to the lake house."
Dominic froze.
"What lake house?"
He knew before he finished the question.
His father had owned an abandoned hunting property near Lake Geneva.
No one had used it in fifteen years.
Mateo called local authorities.
Dominic grabbed his coat.
Clara followed.
"No."
She stopped.
Dominic looked at her.
"It's dangerous."
"Noah may not come to armed men."
"He'll come to you?"
Clara's eyes filled.
"I don't know."
That was the truth.
"But if he hears my voice, he might stop running."
Dominic stared at her for one second.
Then opened the car door.
"Stay beside me."
For the first time, Clara understood that Dominic Vale was afraid.
Not of Victor Raines.
Not of guns.
Not of dying.
May you like
He was afraid his son might disappear believing his father had never heard him.
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