Chapter 11 - The Shadow in the Nursery
At 2:14 AM, the ocean breeze suddenly died.
Claire awoke with a sharp start.
The room was pitch black. The soft, familiar hum of the estate’s centralized air conditioning had stopped. Even the nightlight in the corner of her suite was dead.
*A power outage?*
That was impossible. The Bennett estate ran on an independent solar grid with three industrial-grade backup generators that kicked on within two seconds of any grid failure.
Claire sat up slowly, resting a protective hand over Noah.
Total silence enveloped the massive house. No sound of the security guards’ radios. No sound of the dogs barking. Just an eerie, unnatural stillness that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
She reached for the emergency panic button installed on the side of her nightstand.
She pressed it once. Twice. Three times.
The indicator light remained dead. The wires had been cut.
A cold, paralyzing dread gripped Claire’s chest. She threw off the duvet, her bare feet touching the cold hardwood floor. She made her way quietly toward the master bedroom door and cracked it open an inch, peering out into the cavernous second-floor hallway.
The emergency floor lights were completely dark.
Then, from the far end of the corridor—where Noah’s newly decorated nursery lay—she heard a sound.
*Creak.*
A floorboard groaned under heavy, deliberate weight.
Claire held her breath, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She strained her ears in the darkness.
A soft, metallic click echoed down the hallway. The sound of a gun’s slide racking back.
Then came a voice.
It was not Grant’s voice. Grant was locked in a concrete cell two hundred miles north.
It was a voice she hadn't heard in years—low, gravelly, and dripping with venomous amusement.
May you like
"Did you really think Grant Holloway was the one running this show, little Claire?" the man whispered from the darkness outside the nursery door. "Grant was just the idiot we put out front. Your brother took our money... and now, we take his heir."
Claire’s blood turned to liquid ice as heavy footsteps began slowly, deliberately marching toward her bedroom door.
