Chapter 15 - THE VOICE IN THE STATIC
"Then where do I take him?" Daniel’s voice broke, the terror finally cracking his resolve. "Evelyn, Vance said Claire put thallium in his food! My boy could be dying right now!"
"Listen to me carefully," Evelyn said, her tone steadying him like an anchor in a hurricane. "Drive forty miles north to the county line. There’s an independent pediatric clinic in Oak Ridge run by Dr. Aris Thorne. He was Sarah’s pediatrician when she was a girl. He doesn't take Vance's money, and he doesn't answer to hospital boards. I will call him right now on his private line. Get Noah in the truck. Go!"
Daniel slammed the safe shut, grabbed the master hard drive, and bolted back up the stairs.
When he reached the first floor, the house was eerily silent.
"Maya?" Daniel called out, his instincts flaring red. "Maya! Noah!"
No answer.
The kitchen was empty. The broken glass on the floor was still wet, but Maya’s bag and Noah’s small red backpack were gone from the kitchen counter.
"Maya!" Daniel’s voice ripped through the house.
He drew a heavy steel crowbar from his toolbox beside the pantry, his eyes wild. He moved down the hallway toward the living room.
Nothing.
Then, from the corner of the ceiling, a faint sound broke the silence.
*Crackle. Hiss.*
It was the nursery audio monitor—the old analog unit Daniel had kept plugged in near the mantelpiece since Noah was an infant.
Daniel stopped dead in his tracks.
Through the small plastic speaker, amid a bed of thick white static, came the low, rhythmic hum of a woman’s voice.
She was humming the wedding march.
Slowly. Off-key. Mocking.
Daniel’s blood turned to fire. He raised the crowbar and took the stairs three at a time. He reached the second-floor landing, his boot slamming against Noah’s bedroom door, kicking it wide open.
"Get away from him!" Daniel bellowed.
The room was empty.
The curtains billowed inward from the open window, the cold morning wind rattling the wooden blinds. Noah’s bed was unmade. The dinosaur quilt was tossed aside.
Sitting in the exact center of Noah’s small wooden study desk was Noah’s handheld walkie-talkie—the baby monitor’s paired receiver.
Propped up next to the walkie-talkie was an antique silver music box. Its miniature ballerina was slowly spinning, plinking out the haunting, tinny melody of the bridal chorus.
And lying beneath the music box was a small, plush yellow dinosaur.
It was Ribbon.
The triceratops had been decapitated. Its plush head lay beside its body, and wrapped tightly around its severed neck was the white satin ribbon from the wedding cake—pinned to the desk by a long, surgical syringe filled with a cloudy, colorless liquid.
Daniel’s knees gave out. "Noah..."
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Suddenly, a loud thump echoed from the attic crawl space directly above the hallway ceiling.
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