Chapter 13 - The Vanishing Act
The amber light of the morning sun suddenly felt bitterly cold. Eleanor stared at the glowing phone screen in David’s hand, the chilling words burning themselves into her consciousness. Primary prisoner unaccounted for.
"How is that even possible?" Eleanor whispered, her voice trembling as she tightened her grip on Leo. "She was in federal custody. The convoy had a full tactical escort."
"It wasn't an escape," David said, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek. He was already tapping furiously on the screen, dialing Marcus’s private frequency. "It was an extraction. Mother had a contingency plan in place for decades—a dormant shadow network funded by the very black-budget accounts we missed in the initial audit."
Before Marcus could answer the call, the estate’s automated security system flickered violently. Every exterior light on the sprawling property blinked off simultaneously, plunging the grand entranceway into deep shadow. The smart-home locks on the massive oak front doors let out a simultaneous, automated click—not of securing, but of unlatching.
"David, look at the security monitors," Eleanor gasped, pointing toward the exterior intercom panel beside the door.
The small digital screen mounted on the wall flickered to life, bypassing the main server entirely. It displayed live drone footage from above the estate. A black unmarked helicopter was hovering silently just beyond the tree line, its landing lights dark, waiting in the misty valley below the ridge.
"She’s coming back here," David realized aloud, his eyes widening in horror as he processed the tactical implication of the maneuver. "She didn't run away; she came back to secure the physical hard copies we missed in the private wall safe."
Eleanor felt a cold wave of terror wash over her. "The physical safe... Arthur didn't get all the drives. There’s a secondary vault behind the library fireplace, isn't there?"
David nodded grimly, pulling his car keys from his pocket and grabbing a heavy iron fireplace poker from the portico stand. "Stay behind me, Amy. Marcus is already heading toward the library. We finish this tonight."
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As they stepped back inside the foyer and the heavy oak doors drifted slowly open behind them on their unlatched hinges, a soft, familiar sound echoed from the dark hallway ahead—the gentle, unmistakable clinking of crystal champagne flutes.
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