Chapter 3 - The Man in the Nursery
Spencer’s car had barely stopped before he jumped out.
The mansion’s front doors stood open.
Rain blew across the marble entrance while the security alarm screamed through the halls.
“Stay in the car,” Spencer ordered Charlee.
She shook her head.
“I know where Dexter hides.”
“There is no place where Dexter hides. He’s a newborn.”
“Mrs. Mabel showed me the old laundry passages. She said children used them during games.”
Spencer stared at her.
Charlee had already opened the door.
Pamela followed them inside.
They found Casey lying near the staircase with blood running from a cut above her eyebrow. Mrs. Mabel knelt beside her, pressing a towel against the wound.
“Where is Dexter?” Spencer demanded.
Casey struggled to sit up.
“A man came through the service hall. Mrs. Mabel pushed the crib into the nursery and locked the door. Then someone struck me from behind.”
Spencer ran upstairs.
The nursery door had been forced open.
The crib was empty.
A small bloodstain marked the carpet.
Pamela covered her mouth.
“No.”
Charlee entered behind them and immediately walked toward a decorative wooden panel beside the wardrobe.
She pressed one of the carved flowers.
The panel opened.
Inside the narrow passage, Dexter lay inside a laundry basket surrounded by blankets.
He was crying, but he was alive.
Mrs. Mabel had hidden him before returning downstairs to help Casey.
Spencer lifted Dexter carefully.
For the first time since the baby had arrived, Spencer allowed himself to hold him without fear.
Dexter’s fingers curled around Spencer’s thumb.
“I’ve got you,” Spencer whispered. “No one is taking you.”
A voice came from the doorway.
“What happened?”
Adrian Warren stood there wearing dark trousers and a white dress shirt. His hair was wet, and his gold watch gleamed beneath his cuff.
Spencer stepped between Adrian and the basket.
“Where were you?”
“At the club.”
“In this storm?”
“I returned when the alarm notification reached my phone.”
Spencer’s gaze moved to Adrian’s right hand.
A fresh scratch crossed his knuckles.
“There was a man inside the nursery.”
Adrian looked shocked.
“Did security identify him?”
“The cameras were disabled.”
“Then we should contact Nolan.”
Nolan Price was the estate’s security director.
He had worked for the Warren family for eleven years and reported directly to Adrian during Spencer’s international business trips.
“Nolan isn’t answering,” Mrs. Mabel said from the hallway.
Adrian’s expression changed for less than a second.
It was enough.
Spencer noticed.
So did Charlee.
She pointed at Adrian’s shoes.
“You have mud on them.”
Adrian looked down.
“The driveway is wet.”
“The driveway has white stones,” Charlee said. “That mud is red. The mud behind the dumpsters is red.”
Silence filled the nursery.
Adrian smiled, but his eyes remained cold.
“You have an observant little guest, Spencer.”
“She isn’t a guest.”
The words left Spencer before he had decided to say them.
“She’s family.”
Adrian’s face tightened.
Spencer told him about Florence, Marissa, Lena, and the missing trust.
Adrian listened without interrupting.
When Spencer finished, his cousin leaned against the doorway.
“You’re accepting the claims of a sick elderly woman because she produced an old photograph?”
“I’m investigating.”
“You should be protecting the company. Within one day, you’ve allowed a homeless child, an abandoned newborn, a social worker, and a disgraced physician into your home.”
Pamela stiffened.
Adrian continued.
“People already question whether you’re stable enough to run Warren Industries.”
“Who are these people?”
“The board.”
“Or you?”
Adrian’s smile disappeared.
Spencer ordered him to leave the mansion until the investigation was complete.
Adrian laughed.
“You can’t remove me from property partly owned by the family trust.”
“I own the controlling share.”
“For now.”
He walked away.
Spencer watched until Adrian disappeared down the staircase.
Nathan arrived an hour later with a portable DNA technician and several sealed files.
By midnight, the preliminary results were undeniable.
Dexter was Spencer’s biological son.
Charlee was genetically connected to Spencer through the paternal Warren line.
Florence had told the truth.
Nathan placed another document on the library table.
“I found references to the missing trust,” he explained. “Your father signed it. But the final pages were removed from the archive before probate.”
“Who accessed the archive?”
“Raymond Warren, Adrian Warren, and Nolan Price.”
Spencer looked toward the security monitors.
Nolan was still missing.
Pamela left for the clinic with two police officers to retrieve the physical records.
Thirty minutes later, Spencer received a text from her.
The archive is empty. Someone knew we were coming.
A second message arrived.
I found security footage. Mabel was here last week.
Then Pamela called.
Spencer answered immediately.
“Pamela?”
Her breathing was fast.
“I was wrong about something. The person who accessed your genetic material wasn’t working alone.”
A car door slammed in the background.
Pamela gasped.
“Who is there?” Spencer demanded.
“Tell Charlee not to trust—”
The line crackled.
A man’s voice ordered Pamela to drop the phone.
Then the connection ended.
Spencer called the police officers accompanying her.
Neither answered.
At that moment, Charlee entered the library holding something shiny.
“I found this under Mrs. Mabel’s bed.”
It was a silver bracelet engraved with the name Jocelyn.
Behind Charlee, Casey carried a box removed from the housekeeper’s closet.
Inside were medical gloves, sedatives, and an unopened package of black trash bags identical to the one wrapped around Dexter.
Mrs. Mabel appeared in the doorway.
She saw the bracelet in Spencer’s hand.
Her face lost all color.
“I can explain,” she whispered.
May you like
Before Spencer could answer, a woman screamed from somewhere inside the walls of the mansion.
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