Chapter 212
He ran his thumb over the plastic mask, feeling its sharp edges. It was small — insignificant to anyone else. But to him, it was a wrecking ball that had just demolished the last five years of his reality.
“The security feed is gone, sir,” Gavin said, stepping into the room. He looked uncomfortable, his eyes moving across the slashed cushions and overturned drawers. “Whoever ransacked this place knew exactly where the servers were. They wiped the local backups, and the cloud sync was jammed.”
Hilliard didn’t look up. He kept his eyes on the toy.
“They weren’t just ransacking it,” he said, his voice rough. “They were looking for something. Or someone.”
“We found traces of mud near the vent,” Gavin added. “Small footprints. And drag marks — like someone was pulled out.”
Hilliard’s grip on the Lego tightened until the plastic bit into his skin.
Drag marks.
His phone buzzed against the coffee table. He ignored it. He didn’t want to talk to lawyers. He didn’t want to talk to the police. He wanted to find Cailin. He wanted to understand why there was a child’s toy in her room.
The phone buzzed again. And again — a persistent, angry pulse.
Hilliard snatched it up, ready to hurl it across the room. But the screen showed neither his lawyer’s name nor Charla’s.
It read: Unknown Caller.
The signal strength indicator was fluctuating wildly, suggesting a heavily routed call running through military-grade encryption. Hilliard swiped to answer.
“Who is this?”
Silence.
Then — a sound that made the hair on the back of his neck rise. Breathing. Small and shallow.
“Bad Man?”
The voice was tiny, distorted through what was clearly a sophisticated voice modulator rather than a poor connection, but the cadence was unmistakable.
Hilliard froze. His heart slammed against his ribs.
He knew that nickname.
“Elia?” he whispered.
There was a scuffle on the other end — a rustling of fabric. Then a different voice came on. Still young, but sharper. Controlled. A boy’s voice.
“You have five seconds,” the boy said. “Tell us where she is.”
Hilliard rose to his feet. The Lego ninja slipped from his hand and bounced silently on the carpet.
“Who is this?” he demanded, his mind racing. “Where is Cailin?”
“Don’t play dumb,” the boy snapped. “We’re tracking your movements. We saw your car at the hotel. We know you went inside. Where did you take Cali?”
The room seemed to tilt. They thought he had her.
The children — Cailin’s children — were calling him not for help, but with an accusation.
“She’s not with you?” Hilliard asked, the blood draining from his face. “I thought — when she disappeared from the hospital, I assumed she was with you.”
“If she were with us, I wouldn’t be wasting a secure call on you,” the boy said. “Her comms went dark an hour ago. She missed her check-in. The last place she was tracked was the hospital you just left. So I’ll ask you again — did you take her?”
“No,” Hilliard said, panic rising in his throat. “No. I went to the hotel to find her, but the room was empty. It had been destroyed.”