Chapter 12 - The Screaming Screen
The nursery on the third floor of the Montgomery estate was supposed to be a tomb of solved mysteries. The yellow police tape had been stripped away three weeks ago, the forensic dusting washed from the white wainscoting, and the infamous hidden camera in the teddy bear’s glass eye cataloged into evidence. Detective Marcus Vance stood in the center of the hardwood floor, breathing in the sterile scent of fresh industrial bleach. Outside, the autumn rain slashed against the arched bay windows, rattling the glass like frantic knuckles begging for entry.
Marcus had thought it was over. The bloodline conspiracy had been dismantled, the forged birth certificates exposed, and Julian Montgomery was sitting inside a maximum-security cell awaiting trial. But peace never lasted in this house.
His phone vibrated violently against his hip. It was an encrypted satellite line—the one only three people on earth possessed.
"Marcus." The voice on the other end was distorted by an acoustic scrambling algorithm, low, breathy, and devoid of warmth. "Check the infant monitor on the antique bassinet. Channel four."
"Who is this?" Marcus demanded, his fingers instinctively unholstering the Glock 19 at his side. "The estate is locked down. Trespassing here violates federal court injunctions."
"I am not trespassing, Detective," the voice whispered, accompanied by the dry click of a lighter. "I’ve been living in the floorboards longer than you’ve carried that badge. Look at channel four. Before the timer runs out."
The line went dead.
Marcus swung his flashlight toward the corner. Resting atop an antique mahogany changing table was a vintage dual-frequency baby monitor—an analog relic from the early nineties that the forensic team had deemed dead electronics. It shouldn't have had power; the cords were severed. Yet, as Marcus took a step forward, the tiny cathode-ray screen sputtered to life, bathing the dim room in an eerie, sickly green phosphorescence.
A static hiss filled the cavernous nursery. The screen flickered, rolling horizontally before locking onto a crystal-clear live video feed.
Marcus’s blood ran ice cold.
The feed wasn't showing the empty Montgomery nursery. It was an interior shot of a sterile, dimly lit operating theater. Strapped to a steel gurney was a woman, her face obscured by an oxygen mask, her chest rising and falling in erratic spasms. Beside her stood a man in full surgical scrubs, his back to the camera, holding a scalpel over an open ultrasound screen.
Then, the surgeon turned slowly toward the lens. He wasn’t wearing a mask.
It was Julian Montgomery. The very man Marcus had locked into cell block D at Blackwood Penitentiary four hours ago.
Julian held up a small, hand-painted wooden block—the exact twin of the wooden block Marcus had discovered inside the nursery wall ten days ago. Julian smirked, tapped the glass of the camera lens with the blade of the scalpel, and whispered in a voice that bled through the monitor's speaker:
May you like
"You buried the wrong brother, Detective. The first harvest begins tonight."
The screen violently burst into sparks, throwing Marcus backward into the darkness as the nursery door slammed shut, the heavy deadbolts sliding into place from the outside.
