Chapter 3 - The Sanctuary in the ShadowsThe door swung open three inches into the pitch-black hallway.
I didn't attempt to stand. I crawled out of the storage room, dragging my paralyzed lower body across the cold, dark marble tiles of the primary corridor.
The mansion was deathly quiet, echoing with the ticking of the grand grandfather clock in the foyer.
I dragged myself into the butler's pantry near the kitchen. Resting on the bottom shelf behind three cases of imported wine was the secondary emergency medical refrigerator—a unit my mother had forgotten existed because it was used exclusively by estate nurses during my father's home care years ago.
I pulled open the small stainless-steel door.
Sitting on the top glass shelf, illuminated by a soft blue LED light, were four sealed, cold vials of my immunoglobulin—treatments my biological father’s estate lawyer had secretly shipped directly to the house two weeks before Sheila hid the primary batch.
Tears of pure, overwhelming relief spilled over my lashes as I clutched the cold glass vials against my chest.
Beside the refrigerator sat an old, manually operated mechanical wheelchair that had belonged to my grandfather, tucked behind a canvas dropcloth.
Using my broad arm strength, I hoisted my body off the floor, pulling myself into the leather seat of the wheelchair, resting my paralyzed feet flat against the metal footrests.
I opened the top drawer of the butler's desk.
Resting beneath a stack of old leather ledgers was a secondary satellite burner phone along with the master keys to my father's private legal vault built beneath the wine cellar.
I didn't call the local police. The local sheriff in our parish was Sheila’s second cousin, a man whose campaign had been funded by my mother's political donations. Calling him while Sheila was in Paris would have resulted in a quiet "wellness check" where I would be placed back inside the room and the door welded shut.
Instead, I dialed a private, encrypted number saved in the satellite phone's memory.
Marcus Sterling.
Marcus was my late father’s lead estate trustee and a former senior federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.
The line rang twice before a deep, calm baritone answered.
"Sterling."
"Marcus," I spoke, my voice smooth, quiet, and cold as winter ice. "It’s Una."
A heavy, sudden silence held the line. "Una?! Where are you? Your mother filed a legal declaration four days ago claiming you were admitted to a private neurological clinic in Switzerland!"
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A cold, razor-sharp smile touched my lips in the dark.
"I'm not in Switzerland, Marcus," I revealed cleanly. "I'm sitting in a wheelchair in my father's house. Sheila locked me in the storage room without food or water six days ago and flew to Paris."
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