Chapter 12 - The Message from the Dark
"James! James, wake up!" I cried out, bursting into his home office and nearly dropping Maya in my panic.
James whipped his chair around, his face draining of color the moment he saw the terror in my eyes. He leaped to his feet, catching my shoulders. "Sarah? What is it? Is it the boys?"
"No," I gasped, trembling from head to toe. "Someone was at the nursery window. Just now. They left something on the glass."
Without a word, James rushed down the hall toward the rear patio door, throwing the deadbolt and stepping out into the cool night air with a heavy metal flashlight in his hand. I followed closely behind him, clutching Maya like a shield.
The patio was empty. The grass near the fence was slightly trampled, but whoever had been there was already gone.
James walked over to the nursery window. Stuck firmly into the rubber weather-stripping was a square piece of heavy cardstock paper, folded neatly in half. He pulled it free, his jaw clenching as he unfolded it under the patio light.
I stepped up beside him and looked over his shoulder.
Scrawled across the paper in sharp, jagged block letters was a single sentence: THE TRIAL WAS JUST A SHOW. THORNE'S ASSETS WENT OFFSHORE, AND THE REAL FATHER IS COMING TO COLLECT WHAT IS HIS.
The words seemed to burn off the page.
"That's impossible," James muttered, running a hand through his hair in sheer disbelief. "Thorne's entire network was seized by the federal government. The SEC froze every single offshore account tied to his corporate shell companies. He's locked away in a maximum-security federal penitentiary three states away."
"Then who wrote this, James?" I whispered, tears of frustration stinging my eyes. "Who knows about Maya, who knows where we live, and who has the power to leave a message like this right outside our baby's window?"
Before James could answer, my phone buzzed violently in my pocket.
May you like
It was an incoming call from an unlisted, private number.
I stared at the screen, my thumb hovering over the green accept button, while the phone vibrated relentlessly against my palm in the quiet midnight air.
