Chapter 14 - The Package
The hospital entered full security lockdown.
No visitors.
No deliveries.
No unscreened employees.
Police searched the maternity floor.
Khloe remained calm until she saw the blanket.
Then her hands began to shake.
It looked almost identical to one she had purchased two months earlier.
Marcus noticed.
“What?”
“I had one like this.”
“Where is it?”
“At home.”
David called the house.
Ten minutes later, he had the answer.
The blanket from Khloe’s nursery was missing.
Someone had entered the Thorne residence.
Marcus’s security team reviewed access logs.
There had been no forced entry.
No alarm.
No unauthorized electronic access.
That left one possibility.
An insider.
David gathered every member of the residential staff.
Housekeepers.
Drivers.
Security officers.
Personal assistants.
Cooks.
One name immediately stood out.
Grant Ellis.
Night security supervisor.
He had called in sick the morning after the gala.
He had not returned.
David pulled his financial records.
Two weeks earlier, Grant had received a payment of ninety thousand dollars from a company tied to Caleb Dunn.
Marcus stared at the transfer.
“Find him.”
Police located Grant four hours later.
He had not fled the city.
He was sitting inside a rented apartment in Queens with a packed bag and thirty thousand dollars in cash.
Under questioning, he confessed.
He had provided schedules.
Security codes.
Information about marital arguments.
He insisted he never knew anyone intended violence.
Detective Mills did not believe him.
Neither did Marcus.
Grant admitted one more thing.
He had allowed Isabella into the Thorne residence once while Marcus and Khloe were away.
Khloe stared at him through a recorded interview.
“What did she do inside my house?”
Grant swallowed.
“She walked around.”
“Where?”
“Main floor.”
“Bedroom?”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
Khloe felt violated in a way she had not expected.
“My nursery?”
Grant looked down.
“Yes.”
Marcus stopped the video.
Khloe said nothing for a long moment.
Then she asked David, “Was anything else missing?”
“We’re checking.”
That evening, David returned with a small velvet box.
He placed it on the table.
“Your jewelry inventory found this empty.”
Khloe recognized it immediately.
“My mother’s bracelet.”
Marcus frowned.
“The sapphire one?”
“Yes.”
It had belonged to Khloe’s grandmother.
She wore it rarely.
Mostly at family events.
“Why steal jewelry?”
Marcus asked.
David had already found the answer.
“Because Isabella wore it.”
Khloe stared at him.
“When?”
David opened a photograph from a charity dinner three weeks earlier.
Isabella stood beside a senator’s wife.
Around her wrist was the sapphire bracelet.
Khloe’s bracelet.
Marcus’s expression changed.
“She wore something stolen from our house in public?”
“Yes.”
Khloe studied the photograph.
“That wasn’t theft.”
Everyone looked at her.
“It was a message.”
Marcus understood.
Isabella had entered their home.
Touched their private life.
Taken something personal.
Then displayed it in front of Khloe without Khloe realizing.
It was not about value.
It was about possession.
Khloe looked at Detective Mills.
“You said you needed proof this was planned.”
Mills nodded.
“Ask Grant who told him to let Isabella inside.”
Grant answered less than an hour later.
“Julian Mercer’s security consultant.”
“Caleb?”
Detective Mills asked.
Grant nodded.
Then he added something worse.
“He said Isabella needed to understand the house.”
“Why?”
May you like
Grant looked frightened.
“He said she needed to know what Khloe would lose.”
