Chapter 8 - THE MAN WEARING LEO'S NAME
For half a second, nobody in Haven House moved.
Then Leo took the phone from Maria.
"This is Leo Rossi."
The nurse on the other end began apologizing before he finished saying his name.
A man had arrived with identification.
He knew Lily's date of birth.
He knew the name of her pediatrician.
He knew the private code Leo used when authorizing medical decisions.
He wore a cap, a mask, and a dark coat.
The hospital staff had believed he was protecting his privacy.
More importantly, he had been accompanied by one of the Rossi guards assigned to Lily's door.
Leo's voice became almost inaudible.
"Which guard?"
The nurse checked.
"Daniel Voss."
Mateo closed his eyes.
Daniel Voss had worked for Leo for nine years.
He had stood beside Serena's coffin.
He had carried flowers to Lily's first day of school.
He had eaten Christmas dinner in the Rossi staff kitchen.
Leo ended the call.
"Find Voss."
Mateo was already typing.
"Tracking his phone."
"Hospital cameras."
"Requesting them."
"Road cameras."
"On it."
Beatrice grabbed Leo's sleeve.
"Lily would not leave with a stranger."
"She would with Voss."
"Not without me or you."
Leo looked at her.
"Unless they told her one of us was hurt."
That thought made Beatrice's chest tighten.
Lily would follow anyone if she believed Beatrice was in danger.
Victoria knew that.
Leo knew it too.
"She used me," Beatrice whispered.
"No."
"She knew Lily would leave if they said I needed her."
"That is not your fault."
Beatrice looked at him sharply.
Leo did not soften the sentence or repeat it.
He simply turned toward the door.
"We get her back."
Mateo's phone chimed.
"Voss's phone is moving west on Eisenhower."
"Vehicle?"
"Hospital camera caught a gray SUV."
"Plate?"
"Stolen."
Leo headed outside.
Nico tried to follow and nearly collapsed.
Beatrice caught the edge of a table instead of him because her wrist could not support his weight.
Maria stepped in.
"You are staying here."
Nico started to protest.
"No."
Maria pointed at the blood on his shirt.
"I run a shelter full of women who have survived men scarier than you."
"Sit down."
Nico sat.
Beatrice almost smiled.
Then she remembered Lily.
The smile vanished.
They split into two vehicles.
Mateo coordinated traffic cameras while Leo drove faster than Beatrice had ever seen anyone drive on wet streets.
"You should let someone else-"
"No."
"I was going to say drive."
"Still no."
The city blurred around them.
Mateo called from the second vehicle.
"Voss's phone stopped near Cicero Avenue."
Leo changed lanes hard.
"Exact location?"
"Parking lot behind a closed furniture store."
"Get there first."
"Already closer."
Beatrice gripped the door handle.
Her thoughts ran faster than the car.
Victoria had taken the black notebook from the shelter before the cellar attack.
She had planted a key in Beatrice's room.
She had arranged her own escape.
Now Lily had been taken using Leo's identity.
Every move seemed planned in advance.
Except the rabbit.
Victoria did not know Serena had hidden evidence inside it.
Or if she did, she had failed to recover it.
That might be the only advantage they had left.
Mateo called again.
"SUV is empty."
Leo slammed his palm against the steering wheel.
"Voss?"
"Gone."
"Lily?"
"Gone."
"Cameras?"
"Furniture store has none."
"Street?"
"Checking."
Leo's face was carved from rage.
Beatrice forced herself to think past fear.
"Why leave Voss's phone?"
Leo looked at her.
"To stop the track."
"Then why keep it on until the parking lot?"
He said nothing.
"They wanted us to follow."
Leo slowed slightly.
"A false trail."
"Yes."
"Then Lily may never have been in that SUV."
Beatrice's heart beat faster.
"The hospital has service tunnels."
Leo immediately called Mateo.
"Check whether the SUV actually carried Lily."
"I'm pulling footage now."
"Look at the exit from the pediatric floor, not just the garage."
Mateo understood.
"I'll call back."
Two minutes later, he did.
"Beatrice is right."
Leo stopped the car at the curb.
"Tell me."
"The man posing as you took Lily into a staff elevator."
"They never reached the main garage."
"Where does the elevator go?"
"Laundry, loading dock, maintenance tunnel, and old ambulance bay."
Beatrice closed her eyes.
Victoria had lived at the mansion long enough to know every staff route.
She would choose the same kind of invisible corridors at the hospital.
Routes designed for people like Beatrice.
"Laundry," she said.
Leo looked at her.
"Why?"
"Because nobody watches laundry carts."
Mateo heard her over the phone.
"Checking."
A minute passed.
Then another.
"Got them."
Leo straightened.
"Where?"
"Camera near the laundry dock shows Voss pushing a covered cart."
"Lily?"
"Can't see."
"Vehicle?"
Mateo paused.
"White commercial van."
"Plate?"
"Registered to Kensington Linen Services."
Leo's eyes went cold.
One of Harold Kensington's companies serviced half the luxury hotels in Chicago.
It also owned dozens of commercial vans that moved through the city without drawing attention.
"Track every Kensington linen vehicle that left that district tonight."
Mateo answered.
"Already doing it."
Beatrice looked out at the rain.
"Where would Victoria take her?"
Leo's answer came slowly.
"Somewhere she controls."
"A Kensington property."
"There are hundreds."
"Not all of them matter to Serena."
Leo looked at her.
Beatrice thought of the family photographs she had dusted in Victoria's private sitting room.
One house appeared repeatedly.
A lake estate with stone walls, white columns, and a long private dock.
Victoria had spent summers there with Serena when they were girls.
"Lake Geneva."
Leo's expression sharpened.
"Kensington summer house."
"Victoria keeps photographs of it beside her bed."
He called Mateo.
"Check Wisconsin."
Mateo did not question why.
While he worked, Beatrice remembered something else.
"There was a room there Serena hated."
"You have been to the house?"
"Once."
"When?"
"Three years ago, when Serena took staff for Lily's birthday weekend."
"What room?"
"A blue study on the second floor."
"Why did she hate it?"
Beatrice hesitated.
"She and Victoria had an argument there."
"About what?"
"I don't know."
"You hear everything."
"Not through two closed doors."
Leo almost smiled again.
"What did you hear?"
"Serena shouted one sentence."
"What sentence?"
Beatrice repeated it from memory.
"You do not get to call it love just because you are willing to destroy people for it."
Leo's face changed.
The sentence sounded like something Serena might once have said to him.
But Beatrice knew it had been directed at Victoria.
"What did Victoria say?"
"Nothing I could hear."
"What happened after?"
"Serena packed Lily's things and left early."
Leo stared through the windshield.
"She never told me."
"Maybe she thought she was protecting you."
He gave Beatrice a tired look.
"I am beginning to hate that phrase."
Mateo called.
"One Kensington van crossed into Wisconsin forty minutes ago."
"Direction?"
"Lake Geneva."
Leo started the car.
"Send coordinates."
"Already sent."
"Do not bring a convoy."
"I know."
"And Mateo?"
"Yeah?"
Leo's voice dropped.
"If Lily is there, Victoria stays alive until I know why Serena died."
Mateo was silent for a moment.
"Understood."
Beatrice stared at Leo.
He knew what she was thinking.
"I said alive."
"You said until."
"Beatrice."
"Lily needs a father, not another funeral."
He looked at her.
That sentence reached somewhere anger could not.
Leo turned back to the road.
"Then make sure I remember that."
They reached the Wisconsin border after one in the morning.
Mateo's vehicle followed at a distance.
Rain thinned to mist as they approached the lake.
The Kensington estate sat behind iron gates and a long line of trees.
No lights were visible from the road.
Leo stopped half a mile away.
Mateo joined them with three trusted men.
"Thermal scan shows four adults inside."
"Child?"
"Small heat signature on second floor."
Beatrice's knees nearly gave way.
Lily.
Leo caught her elbow.
"We have her."
"Not yet."
Mateo pointed to the property map on his tablet.
"Main house, detached garage, boathouse."
"No visible perimeter guards."
Leo frowned.
"Too easy."
Beatrice agreed.
Victoria did not take Lily across state lines to sit in a dark house without protection.
"She wants you inside."
Leo looked at her.
"Probably."
"Then why go?"
"Because Lily is inside."
There was no answer to that.
They approached through the trees instead of the driveway.
The rear kitchen door was unlocked.
That made Beatrice even more nervous.
Leo entered first.
The house smelled closed and cold.
Mateo checked the ground floor.
Empty.
A child's cough sounded above them.
Leo froze.
"Lily."
He moved toward the stairs.
Beatrice grabbed his coat.
"Wait."
"That's her."
"I know."
"Then let go."
Beatrice pointed to the thin wire stretched across the third stair.
Leo looked down.
A small sensor had been taped beneath the railing.
Mateo crouched beside it.
"Alarm trigger."
"For what?" Leo asked.
Mateo followed the wire with his flashlight.
It disappeared beneath the wood paneling.
"Could be nothing."
"Could be worse."
Beatrice's skin crawled.
Victoria knew Leo would run toward his daughter's cough.
She had built the trap around the one thing he could not ignore.
Mateo carefully disabled the sensor.
They climbed.
The second-floor corridor was dark except for one blue line of light beneath the study door.
Beatrice remembered Serena storming out of that room three years earlier.
Leo approached the door.
A voice came from inside.
Victoria.
"I knew you would bring the maid."
Leo stopped.
"Open the door."
Victoria laughed softly.
"You first."
Mateo checked the handle.
Unlocked.
Leo pushed it open.
Lily sat in an armchair near the window.
She was awake, frightened, and holding a nebulizer mask to her face.
Daniel Voss stood behind her.
Victoria stood beside the fireplace.
And in her hands was Beatrice's old cookbook.
Beatrice stared.
Victoria smiled.
May you like
"You really should have remembered Serena's gifts sooner."
