Chapter 8 - Grayhaven Burns.
The clinic alarms erupted before anyone could move.
Steel shutters sealed the windows, and a chemical smell poured through the ventilation grates.
Vanessa covered Gideon's mouth with an oxygen mask.
“Mother rigged the sterilization system,” she said.
“If his monitor changed, this place was supposed to burn.”
Lucas unplugged the bed while Amelia searched for a manual release.
Gideon caught her wrist with surprising strength.
“Eleanor?”
“I'm Amelia.”
Recognition softened his face.
“I know who you are.”
Smoke entered the glass chamber.
Vanessa led them through a supply room where an emergency tunnel descended toward the river.
Security men blocked the stairwell behind them.
Lucas fired once into a pipe above the doorway, releasing a blast of steam that forced the guards back without hitting anyone.
They pushed Gideon's bed down the ramp as flames crawled across the ceiling.
At the tunnel mouth, they found the river swollen over the lower path.
Ruth arrived in the estate truck on the opposite bank, but the old service bridge had collapsed between them.
Gideon pulled the oxygen mask aside.
“The bed floats.”
Lucas stared at him.
“That is your plan?”
“It was expensive.”
Even half-poisoned, the old man sounded offended.
They sealed the bed's flotation rails and guided it into the current using electrical cords as ropes.
Amelia crossed first along a remaining support cable.
Vanessa followed behind Gideon.
Halfway across, a shot tore through the flotation rail.
Harlan stood at the tunnel mouth, black mud drying across his uniform.
The bed began to sink.
Lucas dove into the river and held Gideon's head above the water while Amelia and Ruth dragged the cord from shore.
Vanessa turned and fired at Harlan's shoulder.
He fell backward into the smoke.
They hauled Gideon onto the bank seconds before Grayhaven's roof collapsed.
Ruth drove them to a farmhouse owned by the investigator's sister.
There, Gideon received an antidote from a doctor he had trusted before Margaret replaced his staff.
By dawn, his pulse stabilized.
Vanessa sat alone on the porch, still holding the gun.
Amelia joined her but kept several feet between them.
“You knew me in the nursery,” Amelia said.
Vanessa stared at the rain.
“Mother told me you were a doll she had bought for me.”
She remembered taking the pendant because Margaret promised the baby would stop crying.
When Eleanor fell, Vanessa screamed until Daniel covered her mouth.
Margaret spent the next twenty years insisting it had been a nightmare.
“Why did you hate me tonight?” Amelia asked.
“Because the moment I saw you, I remembered everything.”
Vanessa's voice broke.
“And if you were real, then I had helped her.”
Amelia did not forgive her.
She did not look away either.
Inside, Gideon asked to speak with all three young people.
He confessed that Daniel Price had orchestrated the original kidnapping to control the trust, while Margaret had agreed to hide Amelia in exchange for half the estate.
Gideon discovered the conspiracy too late and concealed his investigation because Daniel threatened Lucas.
“Cowardice dressed itself as patience,” Gideon said.
“I let you both grow up inside a lie.”
Lucas placed the memory card on the table.
“This can end it.”
Gideon shook his head.
“Daniel designed those files to disappear in court.”
He looked at Vanessa.
“Only one person can prove Margaret ordered the fire.”
Vanessa slowly raised her eyes.
“My father.”
Gideon nodded.
May you like
“Daniel Price.”
THE JADE SNAIL | A VALE FAMILY THRILLER
