Chapter 6 - The Voice of the Dead
Gabriel could not press play.
For nearly a minute he sat in front of the laptop while the cursor hovered over Claire’s final recording. He had faced armed men without hesitation. He had signed documents that moved hundreds of millions of dollars before breakfast. Yet one small triangle on a computer screen reduced him to a husband sitting beside an empty chair.
Hannah remained near the door.
“You don’t have to do it now,” she said.
“Yes, I do.”
He clicked.
Claire’s voice entered the room.
“Owen, if you’re recording this, I need you to know Marcus came to see me tonight.”
Gabriel’s eyes closed.
“He knows I asked you about the ghost credentials. He told me I was creating problems for Gabriel. That’s how he talks when he wants something to sound like loyalty.”
A faint rustling followed, as if Claire had moved the phone.
“I found transfers from one of the security subcontractors to Victor Sloane’s holding company. I haven’t told Gabriel because I need proof first. He’s finally built something clean, and Victor knows exactly how to drag him back into the old life.”
Gabriel looked down at his hands.
“I also found a lease for a warehouse in Quincy. Marcus has been routing equipment through it. If something happens, start there.”
The recording paused.
Then Claire’s voice softened.
“And if Gabriel hears this… you stubborn, impossible man, stop trying to protect us by keeping us outside your fear. Eli needs his father, not a fortress. I need my husband, not a command center.”
The file ended.
Gabriel did not move.
Hannah crossed the room quietly. She placed one hand on the back of the chair but did not touch him.
“She knew,” he said.
“She knew you.”
“I would have listened.”
Hannah said nothing.
Gabriel gave a bitter laugh. “You don’t believe that.”
“I think you would have listened after arguing for forty minutes.”
Despite himself, his mouth twitched.
Then the laptop screen went black.
The house lights died a second later.
Hannah turned.
A red emergency strip along the baseboard failed to illuminate.
“That’s not the storm,” she said.
Gabriel reached for his phone. No signal.
From somewhere below came a muted metallic thud.
The security shutters were closing.
“Get Eli,” Gabriel said.
Hannah ran.
Gabriel opened a locked cabinet and removed a compact handgun. He hated having weapons near his son, but hating a necessity had never made it disappear. He crossed into the hallway just as the mansion’s backup generators began to start.
They stopped after three seconds.
Darkness returned.
A voice came through the ceiling speakers.
Marcus.
“Gabriel.”
The sound echoed across the corridor.
Gabriel froze.
“I know about Owen’s laptop,” Marcus said. “I know you changed the codes. I was hoping we could handle this like adults.”
Gabriel looked toward the nearest camera.
Its lens rotated toward him.
“You killed Claire,” Gabriel said.
Marcus sighed over the speakers. “Victor wanted you in the house that night. Claire was never the target.”
Gabriel’s blood turned cold.
“She was collateral damage?”
“She was stubborn.”
The calmness in Marcus’s voice nearly broke something inside him.
Footsteps sounded from the far stairwell.
Gabriel moved behind a stone column.
Two men in tactical gear entered the hall. They were not estate guards. Gabriel recognized one from an outside contractor Marcus had hired months earlier.
The first man raised his weapon.
Gabriel fired once into the wall beside him.
The man dropped behind cover.
Gabriel retreated toward the service stairs, forcing them away from Eli’s wing.
Upstairs, Hannah reached Eli’s room and found him already awake.
“What happened?”
“Power problem.”
“You’re lying.”
“Yes.”
She grabbed his emergency bag from the closet and clipped a flashlight to the wheelchair frame.
“Is it Marcus?”
“Yes.”
Eli’s face went white.
Hannah knelt. “Listen to me. Remember the smuggler course?”
He nodded.
“This is the real version. No lasers. No jokes. You do exactly what I say.”
She pulled open the wardrobe and pushed aside hanging coats. Behind them was a narrow service panel she had discovered weeks earlier while searching for old wiring routes.
The passage beyond it was dark and barely wide enough for the chair.
“I can’t fit.”
“You can if we take off the side guards.”
She worked quickly.
A crash echoed from below.
Eli flinched.
“Dad?”
“He knows this house better than anyone.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the answer I have.”
They entered the service passage.
The old corridor had been built when the estate required servants to move unseen between rooms. Dust coated the floorboards, and pipes ran along the ceiling. Eli had to propel the chair himself because Hannah could not walk beside him.
“Slow,” she whispered.
“I’m trying.”
A light appeared behind them through the open panel.
Someone had entered his room.
Hannah closed the hidden door without sound.
They moved faster.
Downstairs, Gabriel reached the kitchen and encountered one of his own guards bleeding from the shoulder.
“Marcus took the control room,” the guard said. “Half the team’s locked outside the inner gates.”
“Can you move?”
“Yes.”
“Get to the old boathouse. Call state police on the hard line. Tell them armed intrusion, possible explosive threat.”
The guard nodded and disappeared through the pantry exit.
A gunshot cracked from the hall.
Gabriel ducked behind the marble island.
Marcus’s voice returned through a nearby speaker. “You should have stayed in business, Gabriel. Fatherhood made you sentimental.”
Gabriel fired at the speaker.
It exploded in sparks.
In the service corridor, Hannah and Eli reached a narrow ramp descending toward the south stairwell.
Halfway down, the chair’s right wheel jammed against a warped board.
Eli pushed.
It did not move.
Hannah tried to lift the frame.
Footsteps entered the passage behind them.
A flashlight beam bounced along the walls.
“Hannah,” Eli whispered.
“I know.”
She looked at the wheel, then at the steep ramp below.
There was no time.
“On three, I’m lifting the right side. You push the left wheel as hard as you can.”
“I can’t.”
“You moved for socks.”
“That was different.”
“You yelled at me for stealing fries.”
“Hannah—”
“You sailed a crooked boat in October wind. You can do this.”
The flashlight grew brighter.
“One.”
Eli gripped the rim.
“Two.”
His jaw clenched.
“Three.”
Hannah lifted.
Eli shoved with both arms.
The wheel tore free.
The chair lurched down the ramp.
Hannah grabbed the handles, nearly falling as she ran behind him.
A shot struck the wall where her shoulder had been.
They vanished around the corner.
May you like
For the first time since the explosion, Eli did not freeze when terror came.
He moved.
