Chapter 4 - What Lies Beneath the Floorboards
Panic erupted in the dining room. Guests screamed, overturning chairs as they scrambled away from the doors. Gabriel’s men instantly drew their weapons, moving with terrifying precision to form a barricade between the guests and the hallway.
Gabriel didn’t flinch. He carefully placed his father’s silver rosary into his vest pocket and looked at his security chief. “How many?”
“Two heavily armed vehicles, boss. They crashed the main gate. They’re in the courtyard.”
“Get the guests to the basement safe room,” Gabriel ordered. “Now.”
He turned to me. “Mrs. Bennett, take Ellie. We’re leaving through the east wing.”
I grabbed Ellie’s hand, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Leaving? But what about Ethan?”
I looked back at my son. He was paralyzed in his chair, his face chalk-white, staring at the rattling doors as if he had seen a ghost.
“Mom,” Ethan choked out, tears streaming down his face. “They’re going to kill me.”
Despite everything—despite the betrayal, the lies, the cruel attempt to lock me in a nursing home—he was still my son. My little boy who used to scrape his knees in the diner parking lot.
“Gabriel, please,” I begged, gripping his sleeve. “Don’t leave him.”
Gabriel looked at Ethan with utter disgust, then sighed. “Drag him,” he ordered two of his guards.
They hauled Ethan to his feet, dragging him by the collar of his suit as we rushed through a hidden door behind the fireplace. The passageway was dark and narrow, smelling of old stone and damp earth. Ellie held my hand in a death grip, her breathing fast and shallow.
“You’re doing so brave, Ellie,” I whispered, rubbing her back as we hurried down the stairs. “Grandma’s right here.”
We emerged in a subterranean garage lit by harsh fluorescent lights. Three black, armored SUVs were waiting, engines already running.
Gabriel opened the heavy door of the middle SUV. “Get in. Keep your heads down.”
I pushed Ellie into the backseat and climbed in after her. Gabriel slid into the front passenger seat, while a driver slammed his foot on the gas. The SUV roared to life, shooting up a ramp and bursting out of a concealed side exit into the rainy Chicago night.
As we sped away, I looked back and saw armed men swarming Gabriel’s beautiful mansion.
“Where are we going?” I asked, my voice shaking.
“We have to get to the diner,” Gabriel said, staring out the window into the darkness. “If Thorne’s men realize Ethan isn’t at the mansion, they’ll go straight to Bennett’s Family Table to rip it apart early.”
In the back of the SUV, Ethan sat handcuffed between two guards. He looked up, his eyes wild. “The diner? Are you crazy? They’ll burn it to the ground!”
“Let them try,” Gabriel said coldly. He turned back to me. “Mrs. Bennett, your husband’s letter said we need to know my father’s favorite song to find the box. Do you know what he meant?”
I closed my eyes, trying to force my terrified mind to think. Frank. What did you do?
“The jukebox,” I said suddenly, opening my eyes. “We have an old 1985 Seeburg jukebox in the corner near his booth. It barely works anymore. But every Wednesday, Mr. Wednesday would put a quarter in and play the same song. Frank used to joke that the machine only stayed alive for him.”
Gabriel leaned forward. “What song?”
“‘Stand By Me,’” I said softly. “By Ben E. King. It was track B4.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened. “My mother used to sing that to him.”
Suddenly, Ellie, who had been completely silent, tugged on my sleeve.
“Grandma?” she whispered.
“Yes, baby?”
“Grandpa didn’t put the box in the jukebox.”
Everyone in the car froze. Gabriel turned around, his dark eyes locked on the nine-year-old girl in my arms.
“Ellie,” Ethan said sharply, “be quiet. You don’t know anything.”
“Shut your mouth,” Gabriel snapped at Ethan. His voice softened as he looked at my granddaughter. “What do you mean, sweetheart? How do you know?”
Ellie reached into the small pocket of her velvet dress—the same pocket where she had kept my house key. She pulled out a folded piece of construction paper. It was wrinkled and faded.
“Because Grandpa gave me this,” Ellie said, handing the paper to me. “The night before he died. He said if Daddy ever tried to take the diner away from you, I had to show you my drawing.”
My hands shook as I unfolded the paper. It was a crayon drawing Ellie had made when she was six. It showed our diner, drawn in bright yellow and red. But there was something else.
In the corner of the drawing, Frank had written something in his neat, block handwriting.
Look at the hands of time, Ruth. They always point home.
I stared at the words. “The hands of time…”
I gasped.
I reached into my purse and pulled out the heavy silver pocket watch I carried with me everywhere. Frank’s watch. He had left it on his nightstand the night he died, and I had never stopped winding it.
“It stopped working last week,” I whispered, staring at the glass face. “I meant to take it to the jeweler. The hands are stuck.”
Gabriel leaned over the console, shining a small flashlight on the watch face.
The hands weren’t just stuck. They had been deliberately jammed.
The hour hand pointed to the 4. The minute hand pointed to the 8.
“Forty-eight,” Gabriel murmured.
I looked up, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. “Highway 48. The old bus station on the edge of town. Frank used to work there before we opened the diner.”
May you like
Before Gabriel could give the driver new orders, his radio crackled.
“Boss,” the security chief’s voice came through, thick with static. “They aren’t at the mansion anymore. They pulled out. They’re heading for the diner. And they have gasoline.”
