Chapter 3
We opened the maintenance room.
Not dramatically.
One locksmith.
Five minutes.
Inside were empty shelves, folded tarps, and an old heater.
Too clean.
Eighteen months of dust everywhere except a rectangle against the far wall.
Something large had stood there until recently.
Rafe ran one hand over the floor.
Rubber wheel marks.
A rolling equipment case perhaps.
Then he found a small metal disc behind the radiator.
Black enamel.
Silver edge.
Not Wyclare.
I recognized the crest.
Vane Protective Services.
Corwin’s company.
I carried the disc upstairs.
Corwin looked at it once and immediately said:
“We supplied temporary equipment during that winter.”
Good.
“What equipment?”
“Communications.”
“Why store it behind a sealed staircase?”
He hesitated.
“Convenience.”
Wrong.
I sat.
“Roland disappeared the same night your equipment was supposedly stored there.”
Silence.
Ismeralda stepped in.
“This is becoming paranoid.”
Adelise looked at her.
“My father vanished.”
Ismeralda’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
Annoyance.
That angered me.
Not guilt.
Not compassion.
Annoyance that grief was interfering with control.
I asked Corwin:
“What happened on the west staircase that night?”
He crossed one ankle over the other.
“Nothing.”
Then Rafe spoke.
“Three months before Roland vanished, we had the first security breach.”
I remembered.
A masked man reached the ballroom service corridor before being stopped.
No weapon.
Gone before identification.
Two months later, another man appeared inside the garage perimeter.
Then a third incident.
After Roland disappeared, Corwin suggested my older security team had become predictable.
He offered younger men.
Different routes.
Modern methods.
I accepted part of the proposal.
At the time, it seemed reasonable.
Now I looked at the Vane badge in my hand.
“What if those breaches weren’t failures?”
Corwin’s face changed.
Tiny.
Enough.
“What if they were demonstrations?”
Ismeralda said:
“Dashiell.”
I ignored her.
Roland had complained after the second breach that someone seemed to know exactly which gaps would look dramatic without getting close enough to create real danger.
I dismissed it.
Told him he was becoming suspicious with age.
That memory landed badly now.
Adelise whispered:
“He knew.”
Yes.
My old bodyguard had recognized something before I did.
Not an attack.
A rehearsal.
May you like
Someone had been manufacturing danger inside my house—
then selling me the solution.
