Chapter 4
Daniel pushed me behind the desk.
Brooks moved toward the study door.
Aaron grabbed the flash drive and slipped it inside his shoe.
“Vanessa isn’t alone,” he whispered.
“How do you know?” Daniel asked.
“She never enters first.”
A flashlight beam swept across the hall.
Then came the sound of slow footsteps.
Brooks crouched beside the doorway.
“Federal agent!” she shouted. “Drop your weapon and show your hands.”
A man fired through the wall.
Wood splintered above her head.
I covered my mouth to keep from screaming.
Daniel pulled me to the floor.
Brooks returned fire.
The footsteps retreated.
Aaron crawled toward the window.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Getting us another exit.”
He unlocked it and pushed the screen outward.
“We’re on the first floor. Mom goes first.”
“I’m not leaving my sons.”
“You’re leaving with us.”
Smoke began drifting beneath the study door.
Vanessa had set something on fire in the hallway.
“She’s burning the house,” Daniel said.
The smoke alarm sounded.
I looked at the shelves filled with photographs, books, and family memories.
This house had survived storms, arguments, illnesses, and death.
Now Vanessa was destroying it because Emily had trusted me.
Aaron helped me through the window.
Daniel followed.
Brooks fired once more and climbed out behind him.
We crouched beside the bushes.
A dark sedan waited across the street with its engine running.
The back door of my house opened.
Victor stepped outside.
He carried a metal container.
Vanessa followed in her wedding dress.
The bottom of the gown was torn and covered in dirt.
She looked like a nightmare from a photograph.
“Where is Reed?” Brooks called.
Vanessa turned toward us.
“You still think Marcus works for me?”
Victor threw the metal container into the yard.
Flames spread across the dry grass.
Daniel started toward Vanessa.
Brooks pulled him back.
“Don’t.”
Vanessa smiled at him.
“You should listen to her, darling. You’ve already lost one wife.”
Daniel lunged again.
This time Aaron restrained him.
Victor raised his gun.
Brooks aimed at his chest.
“Drop it.”
A police siren sounded in the distance.
Victor fired toward the bushes.
The bullet struck the brick wall above us.
Brooks fired back.
Victor staggered but remained standing.
Vanessa grabbed him and dragged him toward the sedan.
Someone was driving.
I saw a silver watch on the man’s wrist.
“Reed!” I shouted.
The sedan accelerated before Vanessa had fully closed the door.
Brooks fired at a rear tire.
The car swerved, struck a mailbox, and continued down the street.
Daniel ran to his vehicle.
Brooks blocked him again.
“We cannot chase armed suspects without support.”
“They’re getting away.”
“The police have the description.”
“The police include Reed’s friends.”
Brooks could not deny it.
Flames crawled toward the side of my house.
Neighbors emerged with garden hoses.
A fire truck turned onto the street.
I stood on the lawn and watched black smoke pour from my front door.
Aaron put an arm around me.
“I’m sorry.”
I pulled away.
“I don’t want another apology. I want the truth.”
He looked toward Daniel.
“So do I,” Daniel said.
Firefighters contained the flames before they reached the second floor, but the study and hallway were ruined.
The rest of the house filled with smoke.
A paramedic examined us.
Brooks refused treatment for the cut on her arm.
She called a supervisor she trusted and requested a private response team.
We were taken to a federal building through an underground entrance.
Nobody used our real names.
Lily and Claire arrived thirty minutes later.
Lily ran to Daniel.
“You came back.”
He lifted her into his arms.
“I promised.”
She noticed the soot on his shirt.
“Did Vanessa hurt you?”
“No.”
Lily looked at me.
“What happened to Grandma’s house?”
I forced a smile.
“It needs some repairs.”
“Because of Vanessa?”
I couldn’t lie to her anymore.
“Yes.”
Lily rested her head on Daniel’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”
Daniel’s voice cracked.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
Brooks led us to a secure conference room.
Aaron connected Emily’s memory card and flash drive to an isolated computer.
The files appeared as meaningless numbers.
He entered a password.
The screen remained locked.
“What did Emily use?” Daniel asked.
“She changed it after the crash threat,” Aaron said.
“How do you know?”
“She left me a message.”
“You had messages from my wife?”
Aaron looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
“I want all of them.”
“You’ll get them.”
Daniel struck the table.
“I want them now.”
“Daniel,” I warned.
He turned away.
Aaron searched the files again.
“Emily said the password would be something only Lily knew.”
Lily looked frightened.
“I don’t know any password.”
“It might be a song or a word your mother used,” I said.
Lily thought carefully.
“Mommy called me her little bluebird.”
Aaron entered BLUEBIRD.
The files did not open.
“Did she add a number?” Brooks asked.
Lily nodded.
“She said I was her bluebird seven, because I was born at seven in the morning.”
Aaron typed BLUEBIRD7.
The screen changed.
A list of bank accounts appeared.
Brooks leaned closer.
“There are hundreds.”
Each account was connected to a dead or missing person.
Some names were marked with a red symbol.
Others were marked with a white flower.
Daniel pointed to Emily’s name.
A red symbol appeared beside it.
“What does that mean?”
Aaron opened another file.
A legend appeared.
Red meant eliminated.
White meant recruited.
Black meant pending.
Daniel searched his own name.
A black symbol appeared beside it.
Next to his name was Lily’s.
Her symbol was white.
“What does recruited mean?” I asked.
Aaron looked sick.
“They didn’t only steal money. They created new identities using children from wealthy families. Some children were taken overseas and raised by members of the network.”
Daniel pulled Lily away from the computer.
“They were going to take her.”
Brooks scrolled through the records.
Payments led to judges, bankers, police officers, and private doctors.
Then she found Marcus Reed.
He had received money for twelve years.
Another name appeared beneath his.
Judge Warren Mallory.
I recognized it immediately.
Mallory had handled Emily’s estate after the accident.
“He controlled Lily’s trust,” Daniel said.
Brooks nodded.
“And he approved every document Vanessa needed.”
Aaron opened a recording folder.
There were dozens of audio files.
He selected the oldest one.
Emily’s voice filled the room.
If anything happens to me, Marcus Reed ordered it.
A man answered her.
You need to leave Dallas tonight.
It was Aaron.
I will not abandon Daniel and Lily, Emily said.
Then tell Daniel.
I tried. Reed showed me photographs of Lily at school. If Daniel reacts, they’ll take her.
Emily began crying.
Aaron’s voice softened.
I can get you out.
No. But you can help me expose them.
The recording ended.
Daniel stared at Aaron.
“You let her fight them alone.”
“She made her own choice.”
“She was terrified.”
“So was I.”
“You should have come to me.”
“I believed Reed had people watching you every minute.”
“He did,” Brooks said. “Daniel could not have gone to local law enforcement without alerting the network.”
Daniel turned on her.
“Stop defending him.”
“I’m not. I’m explaining why Emily was trapped.”
Daniel looked at Lily.
His anger collapsed into grief.
“She lived with that fear, and I didn’t see it.”
I held his hand.
“Emily hid it because she loved you.”
“That didn’t save her.”
“No,” Aaron said. “But what she gathered may save hundreds of others.”
Daniel wiped his eyes and faced the computer.
“Play the next recording.”
A male voice spoke first.
The voice belonged to Reed.
The accident must happen before she meets the journalist.
Victor replied, What about the child?
Leave the child. Daniel’s trust is worth more if he remains a grieving father.
Vanessa’s voice followed.
And when do I approach him?
Wait a year. Make it look natural.
Daniel staggered backward.
Lily did not understand every word, but she understood her mother’s name.
“Did Vanessa know Mommy?”
Daniel knelt beside her.
“Yes.”
“Did she make Mommy’s car crash?”
“We’re still learning what happened.”
Lily looked at Aaron.
“You knew my mommy?”
Aaron’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“Did she love me?”
“More than anything in the world.”
Lily touched Emily’s necklace.
“She said Vanessa stole Daddy because I was bad.”
Daniel pulled her close.
“Vanessa lied. None of this happened because of you.”
Lily began to cry.
Daniel cried with her.
No one tried to stop them.
Brooks continued examining the files.
Suddenly, the computer screen went black.
A message appeared.
THANK YOU FOR OPENING THE LEDGER.
Aaron reached for the cable.
Too late.
File after file began disappearing.
“They’re deleting it remotely,” Brooks said.
“This system is isolated,” the technician replied.
“Then the deletion program was already inside the files,” Aaron said.
A countdown appeared.
Sixty seconds.
Brooks ordered the technician to copy everything.
The transfer began.
It was too slow.
Daniel searched the folders while Aaron tried to stop the program.
A video file appeared for half a second.
Its title was EMILY—FINAL LOCATION.
Daniel clicked it.
The screen showed a security recording from the night Emily died.
Emily’s car entered a private garage.
She stepped out alive.
Victor approached her.
Then Reed entered the frame.
The video froze.
The countdown reached zero.
Every file disappeared.
Daniel stared at the empty screen.
“My wife didn’t die in the crash.”
Aaron looked horrified.
“What?”
“The crash happened on the highway,” Daniel said. “That garage was somewhere else.”
Brooks checked the video timestamp.
“It was recorded two hours after police reported her dead.”
Lily looked between us.
“Does that mean Mommy is alive?”
Before anyone could answer, Brooks received a secure message.
She read it twice.
“What is it?” I asked.
She turned the screen toward us.
It was a photograph taken less than an hour earlier.
A woman sat in the back of Reed’s sedan between Vanessa and Victor.
Her face was thinner.
May you like
Her hair was shorter.
But it was Emily.
