Chapter 9 - The Empty Crib.
Hunter’s scream never fully left her throat.
It became a broken breath as she crossed the nursery and stared into the empty crib.
The blanket was still warm.
Lorenzo arrived behind her.
For one terrible second, he did not understand what he was seeing.
Then every trace of grief disappeared beneath something colder.
“Lock the grounds.”
Gabriel was already shouting into his radio.
“No vehicle moves.”
“No gate opens.”
“Search every room.”
Hunter noticed the window.
It was closed.
The main door had been watched.
“How did anyone get in?” she asked.
Lorenzo looked around the room.
His eyes stopped on the carved wardrobe beside the far wall.
He crossed to it and pulled it open.
Clothes.
Blankets.
Nothing else.
Hunter heard a faint sound.
Not crying.
A soft mechanical click.
She turned toward the baseboard.
“There.”
Lorenzo knelt beside the wardrobe and pressed against the wood.
One panel shifted inward.
A narrow service door opened behind it.
Cold air moved into the nursery.
Hunter felt sick.
Someone had been able to enter Leo’s room without passing the hallway cameras.
Lorenzo grabbed a flashlight from Gabriel and entered the passage.
Hunter followed.
“No.”
Lorenzo turned.
“You stay here.”
“If he hears my voice, he may respond.”
“This is not a discussion.”
Hunter stepped into the passage anyway.
“You can fire me after we find him.”
Gabriel almost smiled despite the situation.
Lorenzo did not.
But he did not stop her again.
The passage descended behind the walls through narrow wooden stairs coated in dust.
Hunter called softly.
“Leo?”
No answer.
They reached a junction beneath the third floor.
One path led toward the servants’ wing.
Another descended toward the basement.
Hunter heard something faint below.
A baby’s cough.
She ran.
Lorenzo caught her arm before she fell on the stairs.
They reached a storage room behind the old wine cellar.
The door stood open.
Inside, a portable crib had been placed beside stacks of boxes.
Leo lay inside it.
Alive.
Hunter rushed forward.
His face was flushed, but he was breathing.
She lifted him and checked him the way the nurses had shown her.
Lorenzo stood beside them with both hands trembling.
“Is he okay?”
“He’s awake.”
Hunter pressed her cheek against Leo’s forehead.
“He’s warm.”
On the floor beside the crib sat an empty syringe without a needle.
Halloran arrived minutes later and examined Leo.
“No obvious injury.”
Lorenzo looked at the syringe.
“What was in that?”
Halloran picked it up with a cloth.
“I don’t know yet.”
Gabriel searched the room.
Behind one stack of boxes, he found a steel door.
Margaret had been right.
There was another room beneath the estate.
Lorenzo opened it.
Inside were filing cabinets, old phones, photographs, and ledgers.
One wall was covered with surveillance images.
Hunter stepped closer.
There were pictures of Lorenzo.
Sophia.
Marco.
Tommy.
And Hunter herself.
May you like
One photograph showed Hunter leaving the hospital after Lily’s death.
The date was three weeks before she had ever applied to work at the Rossi estate.
