Chapter 36 - The Voice in the Nursery Monitor
Daniel didn’t flinch. His grip on the firearm was steady, his barrel pointed directly between her eyes. "Who are you? Number three? Number four?"
The woman in the crimson gown smiled—a slow, predatory curling of her lips that made Clara shudder behind Daniel.
"Numbers are for cattle, darling," she said softly, stepping into the study while the four armed guards flanked her, lasers painting Daniel's chest in crimson grids. "I am Katherine. But Sarah called me sister. Evelyn called me mother. And Eleanor... well, Eleanor calls all of us her masterpieces."
"Where is the real Eleanor?" Daniel demanded, his voice dropping into a dangerous, gravelly register.
"You're looking at her. And you're looking at her ghost," Katherine whispered. She raised a delicate hand, snapping her fingers.
One of the guards stepped forward, dropping a portable satellite transponder onto Daniel's mahogany desk. The screen flickered to life with an encrypted audio-video frequency.
On the screen was the interior of the Sterling Medical Vault.
The blast doors, certified to withstand a tactical missile strike, were open. Dr. Aris Thorne lay slumped across his operating desk, a pool of dark blood pooling beneath his silver hair.
And in the background, the small pediatric bed where Hannah had been resting was completely empty.
A nursery monitor on the nightstand beside the empty bed was broadcasting live audio into the room. A child’s whimpering voice filtered through the speakers:
*"Daddy? Daddy, where are you? The pretty lady said you’re going away..."*
Daniel’s vision blurred with pure red rage. A primal roar tore from his throat. He pulled the trigger.
The bullet struck Katherine square in the chest.
She collapsed backward, but there was no spray of blood—only the dull, metallic thud of tactical Kevlar beneath the silk dress. In the same fraction of a second, Vance opened fire with his automatic rifle, cutting down two of the guards in a flurry of muzzle flashes and deafening thunder.
"Clara, out the terrace window!" Daniel yelled, tackling the third operative as the room erupted into a warzone.
Daniel slammed his elbow into the operative’s jaw, hearing the satisfying crunch of bone, stripped the man’s rifle from his hands, and fired point-blank into the fourth mercenary. He scrambled toward Katherine, who was wheezing on the floor, clawing at her bruised sternum.
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He pressed the hot barrel of his gun against her forehead. "Where did she take my daughter?!"
Katherine coughed, blood spattering across her porcelain chin, but her smile never broke. "She didn't take your daughter, Daniel... she took *hers*."
