Chapter 5 - The Glass Fortress
My breath hitched in my throat. Martha pulled me behind her, shoving me into the narrow recessed alcove beneath the grand curved staircase.
"Hide in the dumbwaiter shaft behind the wooden panel, Ruby," Martha whispered frantically, her voice barely a breath against my ear. "Push the button for the sub-basement. Don't come out until you hear your grandfather's voice. Do you understand me?"
"What about you?" I whimpered, tears blinding my eyes.
"I'll distract them. Move!"
Martha shoved me into the dark, narrow opening of the old wooden dumbwaiter shaft used for sending laundry between floors. I pulled my knees tightly against my chest, my small backpack squeezed against my stomach, and slid the small wooden access door shut until only a tiny sliver of light filtered through the crack.
Through that sliver, I watched as Martha stepped out into the foyer, holding a heavy silver candleholder like a club.
"Get out of this house!" Martha shouted, her voice echoing with incredible defiance. "The police are already on their way!"
One of the masked men stepped forward, roughly grabbing Martha by her arms and shoving her into a chair near the entrance. "Save your breath, old woman. The landlines are cut and the cell jammers are running."
Arthur Mercer stepped slowly across the marble floor, his leather shoes clicking against the stone. He stopped in the center of the foyer, leaning heavily on his silver-handled cane, scanning the dark staircases with cold calculation.
"Where is the child, Martha?" Arthur asked pleasantly, as if he were asking about the weather. "Save yourself the distress. I have no interest in hurting a little girl. I simply need a leverage point to ensure Nathaniel behaves appropriately at tomorrow's board meeting."
"You're a monster, Arthur," Martha spat. "Nathaniel treated you like a brother for thirty years!"
"And he treated me like a subordinate for thirty years!" Arthur snapped, his pleasant demeanor vanishing in a flash of pure rage. He struck the base of his cane violently against the marble floor, the loud crack echoing through the empty halls. "I built Graves Energy just as much as he did! Yet he kept fifty-one percent of the stock for himself, saving it for a daughter who ran away and a street child who returned a wallet!"
He turned to his men. "Search every room on the ground floor. She's eight years old; she couldn't have gone far."
Inside the tiny wooden shaft, my heart was beating so hard against my ribs I was terrified they would hear it through the wood. The space was tight, dark, and smelled of dry dust and old linen.
My fingers fumbled in the dark until they touched a metal button on the inner wall of the dumbwaiter.
If I press it, I thought frantically, the electric pulley will make noise. They'll hear the motor running.
I looked down at my backpack. Inside, tucked into the side pocket, was the heavy black business card I had taken from the wallet I found at the bus stop.
Nathaniel Graves. Chief Executive Officer.
I remembered my mother's words: "Honesty is something no one can ever take from us."
My mother had sacrificed twelve years of her life to protect my grandfather from this man. My grandfather had ordered his entire company locked down the moment he saw my eviction notice. They had fought for twelve years to protect each other.
I wasn't going to hide in a laundry chute and let Arthur Mercer take me as a hostage to destroy them.
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Slowly, quietly, I unzipped my backpack. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small, brass emergency whistle my mother had bought me for two dollars at the corner store, which she made me wear around my neck whenever I walked home from school alone.
I took a deep breath, slid the wooden door of the dumbwaiter open three inches, placed the whistle between my lips, and blew with every ounce of air left in my lungs.
