Chapter 4 - The Sentinel in the Rain
"Who, Jonah?" Jasper asked, his heart hammering against his ribs as he gripped the boy's shoulders. "Don't let who open the door?"
Jonah’s body began to tremble violently. His big brown eyes widened in terror as he looked past Jasper's shoulder toward the hallway.
Jasper turned quickly, but the hallway was empty. Only the faint sound of footsteps echoed down the grand staircase—Conrad's guards making their rounds.
"It's okay," Jasper soothed, pulling the boy into a tight embrace. Jonah’s small arms wrapped around Jasper’s neck, clinging to him with a desperate, terrifying strength. "I'm here now. Nobody is going to hurt you."
Leaving Jonah in the care of Marcus, Jasper slipped the brass key into his coat pocket and headed down to the courtyard.
The rain had eased into a miserable, freezing drizzle. Jasper walked past the glass greenhouses toward the old stone stable at the edge of the cliff.
Sitting on a wooden bench outside the stable was Leo, a former mercenary Jasper had hired five years ago to manage security for his West Coast operations. Leo was forty-five, built like a brick wall, with a jagged scar running from his left ear to his jawline. He was currently stripping down a tactical rifle, cleaning the parts with practiced efficiency.
"Boss," Leo said without looking up. "This place is a fortress, but it's set up to keep people in, not out. Vance has eight armed guards on the perimeter. All of them are ex-military, all of them paid through offshore accounts."
"They're not guards, Leo," Jasper said, leaning against the timber post. "They're prison wardens. They're keeping Jonah isolated until Conrad gets the probate judge to sign over the full inheritance."
"What about the wall in the basement?" Leo asked, snapping the rifle's bolt back into place with a sharp metallic clack. "I took a look down there while Vance's boys were eating breakfast. That brickwork is fresh. Laid less than six months ago."
"Right around the time my father and Garrett died," Jasper murmured, pulling the brass key from his pocket and tossing it to Leo. "Jonah had this hidden inside his stuffed bear. He broke six months of silence to tell me not to let them open the door."
Leo caught the key, examining the blood-stained teeth under the grey daylight. He sniffed the metal, his eyebrows rising.
"That's human blood, Boss," Leo said grimly. "Old, but definitely human."
"Conrad claims my father and brother died when their car went over the cliff six months ago," Jasper said, his eyes turning cold as ice. "He claims the bodies were recovered from the ocean. But what if they weren't in that car, Leo?"
Leo looked from the key to the main house, his jaw tightening. "You think Vance murdered them in the house and walled them up in the sub-basement?"
"There's only one way to find out," Jasper said. "Tonight, when the house is asleep, we break down that wall."
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"It won't be easy," Leo warned. "Vance’s guards patrol the main floor every thirty minutes. If they hear sledgehammers hitting brick, they'll come down there with live ammo."
"Then we don't use sledgehammers," Jasper replied, a dark smile touching his lips. "We let Brutus do what he's been trying to do for six months. And we make enough noise somewhere else to keep Vance's men busy."
