Chapter 4 - THE BROKEN DOOR
The drawing was done in heavy, frantic strokes of red and black crayon.
Mia loved to draw. Usually, her pages were filled with yellow suns, green grass, and cartoon dogs. But this was different. This was a nightmare captured on construction paper.
It showed a stick figure of a man with a jagged red scar across his face. He was holding the hand of another stick figure—a man with glasses. Mason. The scarred man was pulling Mason toward a black car.
Tucked into the corner of the drawing, Mia had written in her clumsy, seven-year-old handwriting: Daddy said hide.
“Mia!” I screamed, my voice tearing through the ruined apartment. I ran down the narrow hallway, throwing open the door to her bedroom.
Empty.
I dropped to my knees, shining my phone flashlight under her small twin bed.
“Mia, it’s Mommy,” I choked out, tears spilling down my cheeks. “Are you there? Please, baby, come out.”
Nothing. Just a discarded teddy bear and a few blocks.
I scrambled to my feet, my mind fracturing into a thousand terrified pieces. Charles Price had sent someone. He knew Elias was making a move, and he had sent someone to silence Mason before he could hand over the financial files.
I dialed 911, my fingers shaking so badly I dropped the phone twice. But before I could hit send, a massive shadow filled the broken doorway of the apartment.
I screamed, dropping the silver watch, and grabbed a heavy brass lamp from the end table.
“Mrs. Carter, please don’t throw that,” a deep, gravelly voice said.
A man stepped into the light of the living room. He was enormous, built like a brick wall, wearing a tailored black suit that looked completely out of place in our shabby apartment.
He didn’t have a scar on his face.
“Who are you?” I demanded, backing away, the lamp raised high. “Where is my family?!”
“My name is Thomas,” the man said gently, keeping his hands open and visible. “I’m Mr. Calder’s head of security. He sent me to follow you, to make sure you got home safe. I arrived two minutes after you did.”
“Someone took them!” I cried, pointing at the shattered door frame. “Charles Price took them!”
Thomas stepped into the room, his keen eyes scanning the destruction. He knelt down effortlessly, examining the broken door lock.
“Charles didn’t take them, Lily,” Thomas said quietly.
“How do you know that?!”
“Because this door was kicked in from the inside.”
I froze. The lamp in my hand wavered. “What?”
Thomas pointed to the splintered wood on the floor. “The force came from inside the apartment. Mason broke the lock himself on the way out to make it look like a struggle. He wasn’t kidnapped. He ran.”
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “No, he wouldn’t leave me. He wouldn’t just take Mia and run.”
Thomas stood up, his massive frame casting a long shadow. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a heavy, dark green canvas coat.
“I found this shoved into the industrial dumpster behind your building,” Thomas said, handing it to me.
I recognized it immediately. It was Mason’s favorite winter jacket. The one he had supposedly worn to work this morning.
“Check the left pocket,” Thomas instructed gently.
I set the lamp down, my hands trembling violently as I dug into the deep, fleece-lined pocket of my husband's coat.
My fingers brushed against a stiff piece of cardstock.
I pulled it out.
It was a boarding pass. First-class. Delta Airlines.
The departure date was for tomorrow morning at 6:00 AM out of O'Hare.
The destination was Zurich, Switzerland.
May you like
And the name printed across the top wasn’t Mason Carter.
It was Vanessa Price.
