Chapter 3 - SHADOWS IN THE WOODS
Midnight arrived with a heavy, suffocating darkness. The temperature dropped below freezing, turning the damp ground outside into a sheet of brittle black ice.
Inside the estate, the only sound was the steady crackle of the gas fireplace in the grand living room.
I sat in an armchair near the floor-to-ceiling glass walls, a glass of untouched bourbon resting on the side table, my laptop open to a secure network feed displaying thirty-two camera angles of the property.
On the third floor, the girls were fast asleep in the master nursery wing. June, Lena, and Laya had refused to sleep in separate rooms. They had dragged three twin beds side-by-side, creating a massive, shared sleeping area where they could hold hands across the blankets.
Suddenly, a faint amber light flashed on my laptop screen.
Zone 4 Perimeter Alert: Infrared Motion Detected.
I sat up instantly, my eyes narrowing at the monitor. Zone 4 covered the dense pine grove along the eastern boundary of the estate—where the terrain dropped sharply into a rocky ravine before meeting the county backroad.
I tapped the screen, switching to the high-definition thermal feed.
A dark human silhouette was moving slowly through the trees, staying low to the frozen ground, cutting through the thick brush toward the secondary perimeter fence.
I grabbed my phone, dialing Thomas instantly. "Thomas. Zone 4. We have a breach on the outer line."
"I see it, Nolan," Thomas’s voice came back crisp through the receiver. "Security team two is moving to intercept now. Stay inside the house and initiate the electronic lockdown."
I stood up, walked to the central security panel beside the fireplace, and pressed the master lock code.
Across the entire forty-room mansion, heavy steel security shutters dropped silently over every ground-floor glass door and window. The internal locks engaged with a series of sharp, metallic clicks, sealing the estate into an impenetrable bunker.
I made my way quickly up the wide staircase toward the third-floor nursery.
Inside the dim room, illuminated only by a small nightlight shaped like a glowing star, the three girls were still fast asleep. I walked over to the beds, pulled the thick down comforter over Laya’s shoulders, and sat quietly on the edge of the mattress, my body serving as a physical shield between them and the door.
Outside, far down in the dark pine woods, a muffled shout echoed through the frozen air, followed by the aggressive barking of our trained security Belgian Malinois.
Five minutes later, my phone buzzed.
"Nolan," Thomas said, his breath heavy from physical exertion. "We’ve got him."
"Is it Derek?" I asked, my voice dropping an octave.
"No," Thomas replied, a tone of grim confusion in his voice. "It’s not Morrison. It’s a guy named Frank Miller—a private investigator Derek hired three weeks ago using a retainer check drawn from an offshore account."
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My eyes narrowed in the dark room. "An offshore account? Derek didn't have fifty dollars in his checking account when he came to my house."
"I know," Thomas said softly. "And Miller just dropped something before we tackled him. Nolan... you need to come down to the security office. Derek Morrison isn't acting alone. Someone else is funding him."
