Chapter 6 - Christmas Eve at the Abandoned Mill
Parker’s phone last pinged near an abandoned steel mill outside the city.
Nathan wanted Lily left at the mansion with police protection.
Lily refused to let go of his coat.
“You come back?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
Nathan hesitated.
Lily noticed.
“You don’t promise things you don’t know.”
Nathan crouched.
“I promise I will do everything I can.”
“That’s okay.”
Mae stayed with her while Nathan left with detectives.
At the mill, Parker was found tied to a chair in an office overlooking the frozen river. He had been struck and threatened, but he was conscious.
The man guarding him was Calvin Rusk’s brother.
A brutal fight erupted between the kidnapper and Nathan’s security chief before police stormed the room. Nathan reached Parker first.
Parker whispered, “My mom sent me here.”
Nathan froze.
“What?”
“She texted me from a number I didn’t know. Said Dad left evidence.”
Vanessa denied it.
Phone records proved the message originated from a prepaid device purchased by her driver.
But the driver had disappeared.
Back at the mansion, Parker sat beneath a blanket while Lily silently placed a candy cane beside him.
He looked at it.
“Why?”
“Christmas.”
“I was mean to you.”
“Yeah.”
Parker almost laughed.
“You’re supposed to say it’s okay.”
“It wasn’t.”
Mae covered a smile.
Parker nodded. “Fair.”
He broke the candy cane in half and handed part back.
Later Parker revealed something else.
Before his father died, Evan sometimes took him to a storage facility. Parker remembered a green door and a Santa painted on the wall.
Nathan’s investigators found it.
Inside Unit 214 were boxes of old company files and a videotape.
The recording showed Evan arguing with someone off-camera.
“I’m done moving money,” Evan said. “Sarah knows. Nathan will know next.”
A woman answered.
“You should have thought about that before you made me dependent on this.”
Vanessa.
Parker stopped the tape.
His mother had been involved.
But then Evan said:
“Vanessa, you’re not the one I’m afraid of.”
A man stepped into frame.
Nathan leaned toward the screen.
The man was his uncle, Richard Cole—the family patriarch who had supposedly retired to Florida five years earlier.
Richard smiled into the camera.
May you like
“Christmas is about family, Evan.”
Then he reached over and switched the recording off.
