Chapter 3Chapter 3 / The Missing Page

The journal's leather cover was warm against Maren's palm, still carrying Soren's body heat from where he'd clutched it against his chest. She flipped through the pages, her fingers tracing the cramped handwriting that detailed experiments, patient names, and dates stretching back six years.

"Wait." She stopped at the final entry. The last sentence cut off mid-word—*Daniel wanted me dead because I refus*—and then nothing. A torn edge where a page should have been.

Soren leaned over her shoulder, his breath catching. "There's a page missing."

"The most important one." Maren pressed her thumb against the ragged seam. "This doesn't prove anything. Not really. It shows your father was afraid, but it doesn't name names beyond Daniel. It doesn't explain how my mother—"

A radio crackled somewhere outside the glass walls. Voices. Boots on gravel.

Soren grabbed her wrist. "Move."

They slipped through the conservatory's side door as flashlight beams swept through the main corridor behind them. Maren's lungs burned as they ran through the narrow service passage that connected the conservatory to the main house—a route she'd discovered years ago while chasing a stray cat for Lydia.

The walls were damp here, pipes overhead dripping condensation onto her shoulders. Soren stayed close behind her, his hand pressed against the small of her back, guiding her through the darkness.

"We can't go to my room," he whispered. "They'll check there first."

"Your mother's quarters."

"She's asleep. We can't drag her into—"

"She's already in it." Maren turned to face him, the dim emergency light catching the sharp lines of his jaw. "She's the one who sent me to the conservatory in the first place. She knew what we'd find."

Something flickered across his face—not surprise, but the resignation of a man who'd been avoiding the obvious. He nodded once, and they continued.

Lydia's private wing was quiet, the hallway carpet muffling their footsteps. Maren paused at the door, her hand hovering over the handle. The last time she'd entered without knocking, she'd found Lydia crying over an old photograph. The woman had never spoken of it, and Maren had never asked.

"Come in." Lydia's voice came through the wood, thin but steady.

She was sitting up in bed, a silk shawl draped over her shoulders, her silver hair loose around her face. The lamp beside her cast long shadows across the worn pages of a book in her lap—not a novel, Maren noticed, but a photo album.

"I was wondering when you'd find your way here." Lydia closed the album and set it aside. Her eyes landed on the journal in Maren's hand, and something ancient and tired settled into her features. "You found it, then."

"You knew where it was." Soren stepped forward, his voice tight. "All these years, you knew what Daniel did, and you never told me."

"I told you what I could." Lydia's gaze didn't waver. "I guided you toward the truth. But I couldn't hand it to you on a silver platter. Daniel would have killed you too."

"He killed my father."

"Yes." The word hung in the air like smoke. "And I've spent every day since wondering if I could have stopped it."

Maren stepped between them, her palm flat against Soren's chest. His heart was hammering beneath her fingers. "We don't have time for this. There are guards searching the grounds. Vance knows we have the journal."

"That's why you need to leave." Lydia reached under her pillow and produced a small brass key. "There's a cabin at the eastern edge of the property. My grandfather built it as a hunting lodge. No one's used it in years. The key will get you through the gate."

Maren took it, the metal cold against her skin. "Why are you helping us?"

"Because I loved my husband." Lydia's voice cracked. "And because I've been speaking with a journalist named Elena Reyes. She's been investigating Ashford Industries for six months. She knows about the NovaGen trials. She knows about the deaths."

Soren's head snapped up. "You've been feeding information to a reporter?"

"Someone had to." Lydia's eyes were wet, but her voice was steel. "I'm dying, Soren. The doctors give me six months, maybe less. I couldn't leave this world without trying to make things right."

The room went still. Maren felt the words land like stones in her chest. Lydia had never told her. Five years of caring for this woman, and she'd never once mentioned she was dying.

"Mom." Soren's voice broke on the word. He crossed to her bedside, dropping to his knees. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you would have tried to fix it." Lydia touched his face, her fingers trembling. "And I needed you focused on the truth, not on me."

The phone on her nightstand rang, shattering the moment.

They all stared at it. The caller ID read: *V. Vance.*

Lydia's hand hovered over the receiver. "He knows you're here."

"Don't answer it." Maren's pulse screamed in her ears.

"He'll only call security if I don't." Lydia picked up the phone. "Yes, Victor."

Vance's voice crackled through the speaker, muffled but sharp. "Lydia. Your son and that girl are on the property. I'm giving you one chance to tell me where they're hiding."

"I haven't seen them." Lydia's voice was calm, practiced. "But I'm sure they're long gone by now. Soren was always resourceful."

A pause. Then Vance laughed, low and cruel. "I've already called ICE, Lydia. The girl's undocumented. By morning, she'll be in a holding cell, and then it's just a matter of paperwork. Your son will have no one left to help him."

The blood drained from Maren's face.

"You wouldn't." Lydia's grip tightened on the phone.

"I already did. Tell Soren I'm coming for him next." The line went dead.

Lydia lowered the phone, her face pale. "Maren. You need to leave. Now."

"He can't deport me. I have—" Maren stopped. She had nothing. No green card, no citizenship, just a work visa that was tied to this position. And Vance controlled the paperwork.

"Go." Soren was on his feet, his hands on her shoulders. "Take the journal. Go to the cabin. There's a landline there—you can contact Elena Reyes. Her number is in the journal's back cover."

"Come with me."

"I can't." His jaw set. "If we both disappear, he'll tear this estate apart. I need to stay, to keep him focused on me. Give you time."

"Time for what?"

"To disappear." His thumbs traced her collarbones, a gesture so intimate it stole her breath. "To survive. To come back and burn this whole thing down."

She wanted to argue. Wanted to grab his hand and drag him through the window with her. But he was right, and she hated him for it.

"I'll find you." She pressed the words into his chest. "When this is over, I'll find you."

"Promise me."

"I promise."

A shout echoed from the hallway. Boots on the staircase.

Lydia pushed herself upright. "The window. It opens onto the east garden. Go."

Maren crossed to the window, her fingers shaking as she worked the latch. She looked back once—Soren standing in the lamplight, his mother's hand on his arm, both of them watching her like she was already a ghost.

She dropped into the garden.

Cold air hit her face as her feet sank into the wet grass. She ran. The journal was a weight against her ribs, the key cutting into her palm. Behind her, she heard glass shatter and Soren's voice shouting—not in fear, but in challenge. *Come find me,* he was saying. *I'm right here.*

She forced herself not to look back.

The woods swallowed her whole. Branches clawed at her arms, roots reaching up to trip her. She stumbled, caught herself, kept running. The moon was a sliver above the treeline, barely enough light to see by. She followed the old stone wall that marked the eastern boundary, her fingers trailing over the moss as she counted her steps.

Behind her, sirens.

She didn't stop.

The cabin appeared through the trees, a dark shape against the sky. The gate was rusted, the lock stiff. She shoved the key in, twisted until her wrist ached, and felt it click.

She slipped through.

The cabin's door was unlocked. She pushed it open, stepping into a space that smelled of dust and pine needles and abandonment. A dead phone sat on a table by the window. A fireplace. A bed with a moth-eaten blanket.

She closed the door behind her and stood in the darkness, her breath ragged, the journal clutched to her chest.

Outside, a vehicle's engine cut out.

Footsteps approached the door.

Maren sank into the closet, pulling the door shut until it was a hair's breadth from closing. She pressed her hand over her mouth, the journal's pages rustling against her ribs.

The door creaked open.

A beam of light swept across the cabin floor.

"Maren."

A woman's voice. Low. Urgent.

"I know you're in here. Lydia sent me."

Maren's hand tightened on the journal.

She didn't move.