Chapter 3 - THREE MINUTES BEFORE MIDNIGHTSabrina hit the basement door so hard it struck the wall.
She ran down the stairs.
No careful footsteps now.
No performance.
No soft voice.
Her face had changed completely.
The elegant hostess was gone.
What remained was a frightened woman whose plan had begun collapsing around her.
Wyatt straightened against the wall.
I stayed beside the service shaft, hidden beyond her direct line of sight.
“Grant ruined everything,” Sabrina muttered.
She pulled the syringe from her clutch.
Wyatt stared at it.
“You’re going to do this while everyone upstairs is suspicious?”
“They’re not suspicious of me.”
“They’re filming.”
“People film everything.”
“They heard Grant.”
“My father will handle Grant.”
She crossed toward Wyatt.
I stepped out.
“Your father has enough problems.”
Sabrina froze.
For half a second, her brain refused to accept what she was seeing.
Then her mouth opened.
“Frank?”
“Hello, Sabrina.”
She backed away.
“What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“This isn’t what it looks like.”
I glanced at the syringe.
“It looks fairly specific.”
She hid it behind her back.
“Wyatt attacked me.”
My son laughed despite the pain.
“While chained to a wall?”
Sabrina’s eyes raced around the room.
She was calculating.
Door.
Stairs.
Phone.
Distance between us.
Then she screamed.
“HELP!”
I didn’t move.
“HELP! FRANK IS ATTACKING ME!”
Footsteps pounded upstairs.
Wyatt cursed.
“She’s flipping it.”
Of course she was.
Irving appeared first.
Then two guests.
Then Grant.
Everyone stopped when they saw Wyatt.
The silence was immediate.
No one noticed me anymore.
They saw the chain.
The bruises.
The ruined knee.
Sabrina reacted instantly.
“Oh my God!”
She dropped the syringe.
“Wyatt!”
She ran toward him.
I stepped between them.
“Don’t touch him.”
“What happened?”
Her performance was remarkable.
Tears appeared almost immediately.
“Who did this to you?”
Wyatt stared at her in disbelief.
Irving descended slowly.
“Frank, move away from my daughter.”
Grant said, “Nobody move.”
Irving looked at him.
“You don’t give orders here.”
“I’ve already called 911.”
That changed everything.
Sabrina looked at her father.
Irving’s face tightened.
One of the guests, a real-estate developer named Preston Lane, held up his phone.
“I’m recording.”
“Stop,” Irving ordered.
“No.”
Another guest appeared on the stairs.
Then another.
Within seconds, the party was spilling toward the basement.
Women in evening gowns.
Men holding champagne.
People who had expected fireworks at midnight were now staring at a chained man beneath the house.
Sabrina began crying.
“My husband has been struggling.”
Wyatt barked a laugh.
“He’s confused,” she continued. “He’s been taking medication. Earlier this week he became aggressive. Dad and I had to restrain him because he threatened himself.”
Someone whispered.
Grant shook his head.
“Then why didn’t you call a hospital?”
“He refused treatment.”
“You chained him?”
“For his protection!”
Wyatt yelled, “She broke my knee!”
Sabrina recoiled theatrically.
“That’s not true.”
Irving stepped forward.
“He fell.”
I looked at him.
“With his ankle chained?”
“The chain came afterward.”
Grant crouched beside the medical case.
“What’s this?”
Sabrina snapped, “Don’t touch that.”
Grant didn’t.
Instead, he pointed.
“Someone should photograph it.”
Six phones immediately turned toward the case.
Irving’s composure cracked.
“Everybody upstairs!”
Nobody obeyed.
Then sirens sounded outside.
Sabrina’s face went white.
Irving moved suddenly toward Grant.
Not with a punch.
Toward the documents.
Grant stepped back.
“You want these?”
Irving stopped.
Grant pulled several pages from inside his jacket.
“Copies.”
Irving stared at him.
“I keep originals somewhere else.”
That was a lie.
I could see it in Grant’s eyes.
But Irving didn’t know.
Neither did Sabrina.
The doorbell rang repeatedly.
Someone upstairs opened it.
Voices.
Police.
Paramedics.
The basement filled with chaos.
Two officers came downstairs and stopped cold.
One immediately radioed.
“Need additional units. Possible unlawful restraint. Injured adult male.”
A paramedic knelt beside Wyatt.
“Sir, can you tell me your name?”
“Wyatt Mercer.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“My basement.”
“What day is it?”
“New Year’s Eve.”
“Do you know who did this?”
Wyatt looked directly at Sabrina.
“My wife and her father.”
Sabrina started talking rapidly.
“He’s intoxicated. He has mental-health issues. Please check his blood. He’s been abusing medication—”
The paramedic interrupted.
“Ma’am, step back.”
“I’m his wife.”
“Step back.”
An officer approached Irving.
“Sir, do you have the key to the padlock?”
Irving hesitated.
That hesitation lasted maybe two seconds.
It destroyed him.
The officer noticed.
Everyone noticed.
Irving reached into his pocket.
A small brass key.
Gasps moved through the crowd.
“Why do you have that?” Grant asked.
Irving said nothing.
The officer took the key.
The chain fell away from Wyatt’s ankle.
My son groaned as paramedics positioned his leg.
I stayed beside him.
Sabrina kept crying.
But she was watching.
Always watching.
Then the officer saw the syringe.
“What’s in that?”
Sabrina said, “I don’t know.”
Wyatt laughed again.
“She brought it.”
“No!”
“I recorded her,” I said.
The entire basement went silent.
Sabrina stared at me.
Irving’s eyes narrowed.
I removed my phone.
“She explained almost everything.”
Sabrina lunged.
She didn’t reach me.
The officer caught her arm.
“Ma’am!”
“That phone belongs to us!”
“No,” I said. “It doesn’t.”
Irving shouted, “This man illegally entered private property and secretly recorded a conversation!”
Grant almost smiled.
“Frank helped build this house.”
“That doesn’t give him the right—”
“Argue about recordings later,” the officer said. “Right now I want everybody separated.”
As paramedics lifted Wyatt onto a stretcher, he grabbed my hand.
“Dad.”
“I’m here.”
“The safe.”
“What safe?”
“In my office.”
Sabrina’s head snapped toward him.
Wyatt saw it.
So did I.
“Behind the framed blueprint,” he whispered.
Irving moved toward the stairs.
An officer blocked him.
“Where are you going?”
“Bathroom.”
“You can wait.”
Wyatt squeezed my hand.
“There’s a flash drive.”
“What’s on it?”
“I copied everything before they caught me.”
Sabrina stopped crying.
For the first time all night, genuine terror crossed her face.
And right then I knew the insurance money wasn’t the whole story.
May you like
Sixteen million dollars was only the reward.
Whatever Wyatt had found on that drive was the reason they couldn’t afford to let him live.
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