Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN IN THE WOODSThe sound of the gunshot ripped through the silent estate, followed immediately by the shrill, frantic scream of my three-year-old daughter from inside the nursery.
I threw Hilda against the wall with enough force to knock the breath out of her lungs and lunged for the nursery door. I threw it open.
"Rosalyn! Camille!"
The room was pitch black except for the moonlight streaming through the iron bars. Rosalyn was cowering in the corner, holding Camille beneath a pile of thin, worn blankets. The window was open, the cold night air rushing into the nursery.
On the ground outside, just beyond the wrought-iron bars, a figure was writhing in the grass.
"Calvin!" I screamed into my radio as I bolted out the side doors of the mansion, sprinting barefoot across the damp lawn toward the tree line. "Who fired?! Who gave the order to fire?!"
"Arthur, stay back!" Calvin’s voice came through, panicked and breathless. "We had an intruder breach the perimeter near the creek! We didn't fire—the shot came from inside the woods!"
I skidded to a halt near the window. The homeless woman was lying on her side in the mud, clutching her shoulder. Blood, dark and thick in the moonlight, was pooling over her ragged coat. Near her hand lay the dented metal bowl, now splattered with red.
"Don't... don't hurt the girls..." she gasped, her voice broken and raspy. Her face was covered in dirt and smudges of soot, but her eyes—wide, pale blue, and desperate—were fixed on me.
"Hold your fire!" I yelled to the three security guards rushing out from the shadows with weapons drawn. "Calvin, get the medical kit from the suburban! Now!"
I dropped to my knees in the dirt beside the woman. She was trembling violently, not just from the gunshot wound, but from extreme hypothermia. She couldn't have weighed more than ninety pounds.
"Who shot you?" I demanded, pressing my hand over her bleeding shoulder to stem the flow. "Who is in those woods?"
"They... they saw me," she wheezed, her chest heaving. "They knew I was coming tonight... they knew I was going to tell you..."
"Tell me what?"
She reached out with her uninjured hand, her filthy fingers grabbing the collar of my shirt with surprising strength. "Your wife... Elena..."
The mention of my dead wife’s name felt like an electric shock straight to my brain.
"What about Elena?" I demanded, leaning over her. "Elena died of an aneurysm! Two years ago!"
The woman shook her head weakly, tears cutting clean streaks through the grime on her cheeks. "Not... an aneurysm... Hilda... the medicine..."
Before she could finish her sentence, Calvin sprinted up, dropping a tactical medical kit into the grass. "Boss, we've got a problem. The front gates are locked from the outside. Someone jammed the electronic relays. And Hilda—"
"Where is Hilda?!" I snapped, looking back toward the house.
"She's gone," Calvin said, his face pale. "She took the underground access tunnel under the garage. But Arthur... that's not the worst part."
Calvin pulled out his tablet, his hands shaking as he swiped to the live security feed of our estate's perimeter.
The screen showed three black SUVs pulling up to the main gate on Old Hickory Boulevard. Men in unmarked tactical gear were pouring out of the vehicles, carrying heavy bolt cutters and breaching equipment.
"Who the hell are they?" I asked, my blood running cold. "Local law enforcement?"
"No," Calvin said, staring at the screen. "That's a private military team. And look at the crest on their jackets."
I leaned in to look at the screen. Etched into the arm patches of the armed men breaching my gates was a symbol I recognized all too well—the corporate seal of Vanguard Logistics, the corrupt shipping conglomerate I had spent the last three years trying to dismantle in federal court.
"They aren't here for your money, Arthur," Calvin whispered, looking toward the window where my daughters were weeping. "Hilda didn't just steal from you. She sold your coordinates."
The homeless woman pulled on my shirt again, her breathing growing shallower.
"Listen to me..." she coughed, blood staining her lips. "Look... at my neck..."
I frowned and pulled down the dirty, frayed scarf wrapped around her throat.
Tucked around her neck was a thin silver chain. Hanging from it was a small, heart-shaped locket made of white gold—with a custom engraving of two tiny hummingbirds.
My breath caught in my throat. My heart stopped beating.
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I had bought that exact locket in Paris six years ago. There was only one like it in the world.
I had buried my wife wearing it.
