Chapter 12 - I stared at Claire.“No choice?”
She nodded, crying.
“They had Lily.”
“But Lily is here.”
“Not then.”
“What are you saying?”
Claire wiped her face.
“Six months ago, they took her.”
My blood froze.
“What?”
“The first time they took her, I was at the grocery store.”
She looked at Lily.
“I came home and she was gone.”
Lily's face crumpled.
“Mommy found me.”
Claire continued.
“They sent me a video.”
“Of what?”
“Lily sleeping in a room.”
My fists tightened.
“They told me they'd kill her if I didn't cooperate.”
“So you did.”
“Yes.”
“What did they make you do?”
“Move money.”
“Where?”
“Into accounts they controlled.”
“How much?”
“Eight hundred thousand.”
The missing money.
I stared at her.
“They framed you.”
“Yes.”
“Then they made you lock Tommy away.”
She nodded.
“They wanted to study him.”
“Study?”
“The marker.”
Claire looked at my father.
“He told me the truth.”
My father lowered his head.
“They were trying to identify the families connected to the old network.”
“And Tommy matched.”
“Yes.”
My mother interrupted.
“You are wasting time.”
Everyone turned.
She pointed the gun toward Tommy.
“You don't have much longer.”
I didn't understand.
“Longer for what?”
“The agreement expires at midnight.”
“What agreement?”
She smiled.
“Your son becomes legally ours.”
I laughed.
“That isn't how the law works.”
“This isn't about the law.”
She pointed at the documents.
“This is about your father's original contract.”
I stared.
“Contract with whom?”
She whispered a name.
A name I recognized from every news report about corruption scandals over the last twenty years.
A billionaire.
Dead now.
But his organization remained.
“They will come for Tommy.”
My father nodded.
“They already know where he is.”
Then we heard engines outside.
Multiple vehicles.
Marcus looked through the window.
“Too many.”
My father handed Tommy to me.
“Take the children and go.”
“Where?”
“Basement.”
We moved.
Behind the old fireplace was a hidden passage.
We entered.
Marcus followed.
Claire came last.
My father stayed behind.
“Dad.”
He smiled.
“Go.”
The door closed.
Then gunfire erupted upstairs.
We ran through the tunnel.
Lily was crying.
Tommy was silent.
Too silent.
I looked down.
His eyes were open.
He was staring at something around my neck.
My father's old watch.
The watch.
I remembered the card.
The files.
The clue.
I removed it.
Tommy reached for it.
I let him touch it.
The watch opened.
Inside was another compartment I hadn't noticed.
A tiny glass capsule.
And inside...
a strip of paper.
I unfolded it.
Five words.
THE SECOND KEY IS BLOOD.
Marcus stopped.
“What?”
I handed it to him.
He stared.
“Your father said Tommy carried proof.”
I shook my head.
“He wasn't talking about the money.”
Claire looked confused.
“Then what?”
I looked at Tommy.
The hospital report.
The genetic marker.
The capsule.
The entire conspiracy.
It suddenly made horrible sense.
The marker wasn't merely evidence.
It was a key.
A biological key.
The capsule contained an encrypted code sequence.
Tommy's blood was the password.
Someone had designed the entire system around him.
Then Marcus's phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A woman's voice said,
“Tell Ethan his mother has Lily.”
Lily screamed.
“What?”
Marcus looked at me.
The caller continued.
“She took the girl.”
I looked down at Lily.
She was still holding my hand.
But the voice said,
“The child you're holding isn't Lily.”
My blood turned to ice.
I looked at the little girl beside me.
She looked up at me.
“Daddy?”
The tunnel seemed to disappear.
Marcus slowly pulled the flashlight toward her face.
And I noticed something.
A tiny scar beneath her left ear.
Lily didn't have a scar there.
The girl smiled.
“Daddy...”
Then she whispered something only Lily would know.
A nickname.
One I'd never told anyone.
The nickname my real daughter had invented for me when she was three.
“Bear.”
I exhaled.
It was Lily.
The caller had been lying.
But why?
I looked at Claire.
She was gone.
The tunnel behind us was empty.
She had disappeared.
Marcus whispered,
“She took the real clue.”
I looked at Tommy.
Then at the empty passage.
And suddenly I understood.
May you like
Claire hadn't run away.
She had gone after the person holding the real key.
