Chapter 12 - BLACKWOOD LODGE
The first team reached Blackwood Lodge shortly before sunset.
No lights were visible.
A black sedan stood behind the garage.
Officers entered through the service door.
The kitchen was empty.
Upstairs, they found the cedar room locked from the outside.
Detective Torres opened it.
Lily was curled beneath a desk with Pepper pressed against her chest.
She wore the same clothes from recital night.
Her face was pale.
But she was alive.
A female officer lowered herself to the floor.
“Lily, my name is Maya. Your mom sent me.”
Lily did not move.
“Is she alive?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Dad said she died.”
“He lied.”
Lily’s face collapsed.
The officer wrapped a blanket around her.
“Where is Sophie?”
“Margot took her.”
“When?”
“After breakfast.”
“Did she say where they were going?”
Lily shook her head.
Then she held out her smartwatch.
“I turned the Wi-Fi on when she went downstairs.”
Torres accepted it carefully.
“You saved the recording.”
Lily’s eyes filled with tears.
“Mom said if I was scared, the watch could listen.”
The lodge contained evidence of careful planning.
Children’s clothes in multiple sizes.
Fake passports.
Cash.
Sedatives prescribed under false names.
Maps showing a private airfield forty miles west.
Margot had intended to take the girls out of the country.
A receipt showed that a charter aircraft was scheduled to depart that evening.
Police called the airfield.
The plane was already preparing for takeoff.
Elena received the news while sitting in Samantha’s car outside the chapel.
Lily had been found.
Elena dropped the phone and sobbed.
Samantha pulled her into her arms.
“My baby is alive.”
“Yes.”
“And Sophie?”
“They believe Margot is taking her to an airfield.”
Elena wiped her face.
“Take me there.”
“Elena—”
“Sophie is six. She will be terrified. If she sees me, she may run toward me. If Margot has her—”
Samantha understood.
They drove west under police escort.
At the private airfield, officers blocked the runway.
The charter plane remained near a hangar with its engines running.
Margot’s stolen car was found behind a maintenance building.
The rear door stood open.
A child’s yellow raincoat lay on the ground.
But Sophie was not in the car.
A maintenance worker reported seeing a dark-haired woman carrying a child toward an older hangar near the tree line.
Police surrounded the structure.
Margot shouted from inside.
“If anyone comes through that door, Elena will lose another daughter!”
Elena arrived in time to hear the threat through a police radio.
Her legs almost failed beneath her.
Then a small voice came from inside the hangar.
“Mommy!”
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👉 Lily had been rescued, but Sophie remained trapped with Margot inside a locked hangar only yards from a waiting plane.
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