Chapter 15 - DADThe house became silent.
Daniel looked at his daughters.
Lily.
Mara.
For twenty-eight years, he had imagined this moment.
But reality was stranger than every dream.
There was no perfect reunion.
No easy forgiveness.
No magical repair.
There were too many lies.
Too many wounds.
Too many years stolen.
But they were together.
For the first time.
Then the phone rang again.
The same unknown number.
Daniel answered.
“Who are you?”
The voice returned.
“Someone who knows the entire story.”
“Tell me.”
“You have the ledger.”
“Yes.”
“Then you know Cross was only a middleman.”
“Who hired him?”
A pause.
“Your government.”
Daniel went still.
Lily stared at him.
The voice continued.
“Twenty-eight years ago, there were children being moved across the country.”
“Some were used for blackmail.”
“Some for identity fraud.”
“Some for experiments.”
“And some were hidden because powerful people needed them to disappear.”
Daniel clenched his fists.
“What does that have to do with my daughters?”
“They were the first.”
“First what?”
“The first children whose memories were successfully altered.”
Lily looked horrified.
Mara whispered:
“Project Amira.”
“Yes.”
Daniel finally understood the phrase.
It wasn't the name of a woman.
It was the name of an experiment.
Amira had been part of it.
Lily had survived it.
Mara had been used as the control subject.
And Daniel had spent twenty-eight years searching while the people responsible watched him.
The voice spoke again.
“There is one final problem.”
“What?”
“The ledger isn't complete.”
Daniel looked down.
Pages were missing.
“Where are the missing pages?”
“Your daughter has them.”
Daniel turned toward Lily.
She stared at her hands.
“I don't know.”
“Think.”
She closed her eyes.
The red door.
The hospital.
Amira.
A silver bracelet.
A little girl crying.
Then suddenly her eyes opened.
“I remember.”
Daniel rushed toward her.
“What?”
Lily whispered:
“Amira gave me something.”
“What?”
“She told me to hide it where Dad would eventually look.”
Daniel felt his heartbeat accelerate.
“Where?”
Lily looked toward the old dining room.
“The empty chair.”
Daniel froze.
For twenty-eight years, one chair at the dinner table had remained untouched.
He walked toward it.
Slowly.
He turned it over.
There was a small compartment underneath.
Inside was a bundle of papers.
The missing pages.
Names.
Dates.
Photographs.
Payments.
And one final photograph.
Daniel lifted it.
It showed a young Sarah.
A young Adrian Cross.
Marcus Vale.
Amira.
And a fifth person.
A man Daniel had never met.
Except he had.
Daniel's face went pale.
The man was his father.
Daniel's father had died when Daniel was nineteen.
But the photograph was dated six years after his supposed death.
On the back was a message.
Your father started this. Sarah tried to end it. You were always the final test.
Daniel stared at the photograph.
Lily came beside him.
“Dad?”
He slowly turned toward her.
And then something happened that neither of them expected.
Daniel laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because after twenty-eight years of searching, the impossible had finally happened.
He had found his daughter.
Then another.
But the truth they had uncovered was larger than their family.
It reached into every institution they had trusted.
Every person they had believed.
Every door they had knocked on.
And somewhere out there was the man who had been waiting for Daniel to uncover everything.
The phone rang one final time.
Daniel answered.
The voice said:
“Now that you've found your daughters…”
A pause.
“…we need to find your father.”
The line went dead.
Daniel looked at Lily.
Looked at Mara.
Then at the photograph.
His father was supposed to have been dead for thirty-four years.
But the photograph proved otherwise.
For the first time in twenty-eight years, Daniel Hart had stopped searching for his daughter.
Because now he had a far more terrifying question.
Where was his father?
May you like
And why had he been waiting for Daniel to find him?
TO BE CONTINUED.
