Chapter 11 - THE WOMAN AT THE FAMILY CENTER
The woman who attended the monitored visit was identified through a partial fingerprint on the visitor badge.
She was Rebecca Sloan, an actress paid through the same false foundation vendor that funded Adrian.
Isabella had supplied clothing, makeup, and recordings of her voice. The supervisors had checked identification against documents Isabella’s lawyers submitted weeks earlier.
The photograph had been subtly altered.
Rebecca surrendered after police reached her apartment. She claimed she believed the event was part of a private custody operation.
Messages showed she knew Ethan was being removed without lawful authority.
She did not know where Isabella had taken him afterward.
The ballroom camera continued broadcasting.
Isabella kept Ethan beneath the chandelier but never remained in frame for long. She knew police would study reflections and sound.
The mansion contained forty-six rooms, old service corridors, and three sealed passages not shown on modern plans.
William produced the original voting certificates from a bank vault under police observation. They were placed inside a duplicate leather case while the real documents remained secure.
No one expected Isabella to accept paper without verification.
The goal was time.
Adrian explained how the security system had been altered. Isabella could close fire doors individually and trigger silent alarms. She had copied master keys and installed battery cameras throughout the passages.
“Can she see the tactical team?” Brooks asked.
“Some of them.”
“Can she hear us?”
“If you use house phones or internal radios.”
Police moved to an independent frequency.
I studied the ballroom image.
Ethan’s chair stood slightly left of center. Behind him, a curtain shifted every twenty-eight seconds although the windows were closed.
Air from a service vent.
I remembered cleaning soot from that curtain after a chimney repair. The vent connected to the musicians’ gallery above the ballroom.
A team entered the gallery.
They found a speaker playing Ethan’s breathing and a prerecorded loop projected onto a fabric screen.
The ballroom image was fake.
Isabella had forced us to search the wrong floor.
Then Ethan’s voice broke through the mansion’s public-address system.
“Emma?”
I grabbed the microphone before anyone stopped me.
“I’m here.”
“I can hear water.”
The pump house.
But police had already searched it.
“There’s a green light,” he whispered. “And she says the wall is going to close.”
Isabella had taken him back to the first room because she believed we would not search the same place twice.
Police moved toward the lake.
William started after them.
I blocked him.
“She wants you running without thinking.”
“That is my son.”
“And she has used that every time.”
He looked ready to shove past me.
Then he stopped.
For the first time, he allowed someone else’s plan to protect Ethan instead of trusting his anger.
The tactical team entered the pump house.
The green room was empty.
A wet footprint led to a hatch beneath the narrow bed.
Below it ran an old drainage tunnel toward the mansion’s conservatory.
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Isabella was not retreating.
She was moving Ethan toward the gala entrance, where cameras and public roads gave her the best chance to turn capture into spectacle.
