Chapter 4: They Key Behind The Clock

I did not run. Running makes noise, and noise gets people killed.

I stepped off the path, slid behind a rosebush, and listened. The thought had come from 

somewhere on my left, low and hurried, and it was already moving away from me. I counted my 

steps the way I counted numbers at work. Fifteen steps was my limit. If I stayed right at the 

edge, I could follow without being seen.

I need to stay on the left path and keep low, away from the lamps, and get to the gatehouse 

before anyone sees me.

It was a man's voice, tight with nerves. I crept along the hedge, one step at a time, until I saw a 

dark shape slip around the corner of the garden wall. He wore a black suit. When he passed 

under a far lamp, I saw his face.

The guard from the gate. The one with the polite smile.

I followed him past the rose beds and the old fountain until he reached the little stone 

gatehouse by the front wall. He stepped inside and shut the door. The window glowed yellow. I 

crouched in the dark beside it, close enough to catch every thought.

He picked up a phone. His mind was loud and clear.

I must tell him everything.

"Mr. Blackwood, it is Rourke," he said out loud. "Rothwell took her to the garden. They talked for 

ten minutes. He said he always knows when someone is lying."

Vincent's car had left the house an hour ago, so he was somewhere far away, listening on the 

other end. I could not hear his voice, because the phone kept it from reaching me. But I heard 

Rourke's thoughts change.

He sounds worried. I have never heard him worried.

"Yes, sir, I understand. Two men will go into the study at one o'clock tonight, and I will leave the 

side door open for them."

He hung up and wiped his palm on his jacket, and his mind raced ahead without stopping. The 

two men will come through the side door at one and take the whole file, then burn every page 

before sunrise, and if the girl wakes up before then, I must call Mr. Blackwood at once

I stayed crouched until he walked out the door and went back to his post. Then I slipped away 

along the wall, my hands cold and my head spinning.

They were going to destroy the file tonight.

The file my father had never burned. The file with something inside that could end everything. 

They had known it was there for twenty three years, and today, because Isadora told Vincent I 

was getting close, they had decided to finish it.

I had less than four hours.

Back in the house, the halls were quiet. A clock chimed nine thirty somewhere deep in the walls. 

I passed the library door and stopped when I heard a glass clink.

My father sat alone in a leather chair with a drink in his hand. The lamp lit his gray hair and the 

heavy lines around his eyes. He looked old and tired, like a man who had been carrying a stone 

for years.

I should have turned around. Instead I stepped quietly into the doorway, still within range.

His thoughts rolled out like a slow tide.

Twenty three years. I still hear her cry in my sleep.

My throat tightened. I made myself stay still.

He finished his drink and stood. At the door, he stopped beside the tall grandfather clock in the 

corner. He did not look at the time. He rested his hand on the back of the clock for one second, 

like a man checking that something was still there.

Not tonight. Not yet.

Then he left through the far door, and his footsteps faded down the hall.

I waited ten full breaths. A man does not touch a clock like that for no reason. I crossed the 

library, ran my fingers along the back of the wood, and felt something cold taped near the 

bottom. I peeled it off.

A small brass key, cold and gritty with dust.

I put it in my pocket and went upstairs.

The house went quiet one room at a time. I sat on my bed with the lights off and watched the 

clock hands crawl toward midnight. In my old job, this was called a window of opportunity. You 

had it for a short time, and if you missed it, the evidence vanished.

At eleven forty five, I changed into a dark sweater and soft black trousers. I moved the chess 

pawn into the sweater pocket, next to the key. Then I took off my shoes and opened my door.

The hallway was dark. A single lamp glowed at the far end of the corridor. I stayed near the wall, 

walking only on the edges of the carpet where the boards did not creak. Halfway along, I heard 

a thought drifting up the stairs.

It was a boring night. Nothing to do but watch the hall.

A guard, probably the one at the foot of the stairs. I stopped and held my breath until his 

thoughts faded into a yawn. Then I slipped past the last corner and reached the dark wooden 

door at the end of the corridor.

My hand was shaking so badly I almost dropped the key.

It turned with a soft click.

The study was cold and smelled like old paper. Moonlight came in through one tall window and 

fell across a heavy oak desk, a leather chair, and a wall of dusty books. There was a small 

framed photo on the desk. I picked it up.

A young Genevieve, laughing, held a tiny baby wrapped in a pink blanket. Beside her, my father, 

years younger, wore a smile I had never seen on him.

The baby. The real one.

I put the photo back as gently as I could. I had no time to cry for a child who had never been 

mine.

The desk had three drawers. The top two opened easily and held only pens and old letters. The 

bottom drawer was locked, and I did not have a second key.

But I had spent ten years finding things people did not want found. I pulled the middle drawer all 

the way out and measured its depth with my hand. Then I measured the bottom one from the 

outside.

The outside was deeper by almost two inches.

I felt along the wood until I found a small gap at the back and pressed it. A thin board lifted. 

Underneath lay a brown folder, tied with string, as thick as my wrist.

I opened it with shaking fingers.

The first page was a hospital birth record from St. Aurelia Hospital, dated twenty three years 

ago. The name BEAUMONT sat at the top in big black letters. The second page was a pale yellow form, soft with age.

I held it up to the window.

TRANSFER OF INFANT. Female, three days old. Released from St. Aurelia to the care of…

The rest of the line was gone. Someone had covered it with thick black ink, over and over, until 

the paper was almost torn through.

Reason for transfer: parental request. Witnessed by night supervisor, E. Nightfall.

My mouth went dry.

Parental request.

The baby had not been stolen. Someone had sent her away. And someone had worked very 

hard to hide where.

I read the bottom of the page twice, then a third time, because I could not believe it. A 

signature. Black ink, sharp and slanted. Beneath it, printed neatly, was a name.

Maximilian Beaumont.

My father had signed his own baby away.

I stood in the cold moonlight with the paper trembling in my hand. It could not be true. His 

thoughts had been so full of grief and guilt. A man does not hear a child cry in his sleep for 

twenty three years unless he truly loved her.

Unless he signed because he had no choice.

Or unless someone had made that signature look like his.

I pulled out my phone to take a picture of the page, and that was when I heard it.

A thin, metal scrape in the hall. The soft scratch of a pick sliding into a lock.

It was not midnight yet. They were early.

I looked at the study door. It was unlocked, but I had pulled it closed behind me, and the 

footsteps outside had stopped right in front of it.