Chapter 16 - Whispering Pines (Whispers of Betrayal)
My heart plummeted into my stomach. The air in the corridor outside the courtroom suddenly felt impossibly thin.
"Reid," I choked out, grabbing his arm so tightly my knuckles turned white. "Did you see his face? What he said?"
Reid’s calm demeanor vanished in a single microsecond. He pulled out his phone, his thumb flying across the glass screen to dial the lead security detail back at our country house.
The phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times. Four times.
"Answer it, damn it," Reid muttered under his breath, his face turning pale.
On the fifth ring, the call connected, but instead of the disciplined voice of our chief security officer, Marcus, all we heard was static and the sound of heavy wind.
"Marcus?" Reid barked into the phone. "Marcus, respond!"
"...Mr. Reid?" Marcus’s voice cut through the static, raspy and breathing heavily. "Sir... there’s been... an breach at the perimeter gate."
"Where are the children?!" I screamed into the phone, pushing my face close to Reid’s speaker. "Where are Wren and Leo?!"
"Wren is inside with Dr. Arden’s assistant... but Leo—" Marcus coughed hard. "A vehicle cleared the back fence two minutes ago. They had a bypass code for the digital security system. Sir... they knew the master bypass key!"
"No!" I shrieked, collapsing against Reid as the world spun around me.
"Who took him, Marcus?!" Reid roared, his knuckles turning white around the phone. "Who took my son?!"
"It was... it was Sarah," Marcus gasped out. "The nanny... she disabled the internal alarms from the nursery keypad..."
Sarah. The sweet, quiet twenty-four-year-old nursing student we had hired six months ago to help with Leo. The girl who had played with Wren at her birthday party just yesterday, who had served cake and laughed under the oak tree.
She was the insider.
"Arthur!" Reid shouted, turning to Pendelton, who was already running toward us with two federal marshals. "They took Leo! They used an inside operative to bypass our home security!"
"I’m issuing a statewide Amber Alert right now!" Pendelton barked, turning to the marshals. "Lock down all airports, train hubs, and interstate toll plazas within a fifty-mile radius!"
"No," I cried, tears blinding my vision as I grabbed Reid’s coat. "Julian planned this! If the legal hearing failed, Leo was his bargaining chip to force us to withdraw the criminal charges!"
Reid took my face in his hands, his eyes blazing with a fierce, terrifying intensity I had never seen before. "Listen to me," he said, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper. "Julian is trapped in federal custody right now. He cannot reach Leo himself. Sarah is working for whoever is funding Julian on the outside."
"Victoria," I gasped. "Victoria said Aegis Global Health had private contractors!"
Reid didn't hesitate. He pulled out his secondary encrypted phone, dialing the local police department in Whispering Pines where Victoria was being held for protection.
"This is Reid," he told the desk sergeant. "Put Victoria on the phone right now."
A ten-second silence felt like ten agonizing years. Then Victoria’s trembling voice came over the speaker. "Reid? What happened? I heard shouting on the police radio—"
"Sarah," Reid demanded coldly. "Who is Sarah? What is her real name?"
Victoria let out a soft, horrified gasp over the line. "Sarah... oh God, Reid... Sarah isn't an operative. Sarah is Julian’s younger half-sister from his father's second marriage. She’s been living under her mother’s maiden name for six years."
My knees gave out completely, and Reid caught me before I hit the marble floor.
"Where would she take him?" Reid demanded, his voice shaking the quiet corridor. "Where is Julian’s safe house?"
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"She won't take him to a safe house," Victoria warned frantically. "She’ll take him to the old private airstrip near Blackwood Ridge—the old private estate where Julian kept his charter plane before the arrest! If she gets him onto that private light aircraft, they will be out of federal airspace in thirty minutes!"
Reid slammed his phone shut, looking down at me. "Get in the car," he said softly. "We are getting our son back."
