Chapter 13 - The Voice in the Monitor
The penthouse safe room was designed to withstand a military siege. Armored blast doors, independent ventilation systems, and panoramic bulletproof windows overlooking the rainy skyline of downtown Chicago. Yet inside the master nursery, Clara felt like a prisoner in a glass cage.
Baby Leo slept peacefully in his mahogany crib, breathing with the rhythmic innocence that only children possess. Clara sat in the rocking chair beside him, a loaded Glock 19 resting on her lap, her knuckles white around the grip. Every creak of the floorboards, every gust of wind slamming against the reinforced glass sent adrenaline surging through her veins.
It was 2:14 AM.
The baby monitor on the nightstand crackled with white noise. Clara glanced at the small LCD screen. The infrared camera clearly showed Leo sleeping. But then the static sharpened into a strange, rhythmic cadence.
*Hiss... crackle... tap... tap... tap...*
It sounded like fingernails tapping against a glass pane.
Clara froze. The hair on her arms stood straight up. She slowly stood up, keeping her eyes fixed on the door and the window. The bedroom was completely locked from the inside. Only Julian and Marcus had the access codes.
Then, from the tiny speaker of the monitor, a voice emerged through the static. It was soft, melodious, and sickeningly familiar. A woman was humming a lullaby—a classic French lullaby that Victoria had sung on the rooftop terrace that fateful evening, moments before her hand shoved Clara into the freezing pool.
*“Fais dodo, Colas mon p'tit frère... Fais dodo, t'auras du lolo...”*
"Julian?" Clara whispered into the comms unit on her collar. "Julian, are you on the feed?!"
No response. Only static.
The singing stopped. A whisper, raspy yet unmistakably intimate, breathed directly into the receiver: *“He has your eyes, Clara. But he has his father’s pulse. Do you know how long a baby can hold his breath under six feet of water? Longer than you think. But not long enough to survive me twice.”*
"Where are you?!" Clara screamed, aiming the pistol at the ceiling vents, her eyes wild with terror. "Show yourself, you sick coward! Where are you?!"
*“Look out the window, sweet sister-in-law.”*
Clara’s heart pounded against her ribs like a sledgehammer. Her feet felt like lead as she moved slowly toward the heavy ballistic glass overlooking the adjacent skyscraper. Across the narrow eighty-foot gap between the towers, standing on the unlit maintenance ledge of the neighboring building amidst the blinding rain, stood a figure in a black trench coat.
The woman held an umbrella in one hand and high-powered binoculars in the other. A lightning bolt tore across the Chicago sky, illuminating her face for a split second.
The face was different—the cheekbones were sharper, the nose more sculpted, the lips thinner. But the smile was identical. It was the smile of a predator watching its prey bleed out in the snow.
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The woman raised her hand, pointed two fingers like a gun toward the window, and pulled the invisible trigger. Then she stepped backward into the darkness of the fire escape, disappearing into the torrential rain.
***
