Chapter 9 - THE MAN BENEATH THE GREENHOUSE.
The service elevator led to a private medical suite hidden beneath the greenhouse.
The rooms contained a hospital bed, monitors, books, and years of unopened newspapers.
Charles Blackwood was not there.
The bedding was warm.
A half-written note remained on the desk.
Someone had moved him moments before the family entered.
Ethan found his father’s watch beside the bed.
The date wheel had been adjusted every morning.
Charles had been alive recently enough to maintain it.
Victoria finally admitted that her husband survived the heart attack.
He suffered speech and mobility complications, but his mind remained clear.
Shortly before the attack, Charles discovered the pension fraud and planned to restore the employee trust.
Victoria and Julian feared the decision would force the family to sell major properties.
They moved Charles into the underground suite and announced his death.
Sloan arranged the paperwork.
Private doctors signed the certificate.
The family board transferred Charles’s voting authority to Victoria.
Ethan asked why no one trusted him with the truth.
Victoria answered with brutal honesty.
“You would have chosen your father.”
She had spent years calling Ethan the favored son while never trusting him enough to risk her control.
Julian defended the confinement as compassionate medical care.
Mrs. Harper pointed to the locked elevator.
“People receiving care are allowed to leave.”
On the desk lay monthly payment records.
The underground suite had been financed with employee pension money.
The workers paid to keep the man who tried to restore their savings hidden beneath his own mansion.
Ethan ordered Victoria, Julian, and Sloan confined to the main house under security supervision until authorities arrived.
He did not touch them.
He did not shout.
He simply removed the access cards from their hands.
Nora called again.
She said Charles had activated the speaking tube after hearing Ranger above the bedroom.
Someone moved him through a second tunnel before the greenhouse opened.
Only three people knew that route existed.
Victoria.
Sloan.
And Ethan.
Nora sent another image.
It showed Ethan standing beside the tunnel entrance the previous night.
May you like
He was carrying his sleeping daughter’s stuffed rabbit.
Ethan did not remember leaving the bedroom.
