Chapter 7 - They escaped through the ventilation shaft.Émilie scraped her knees crawling through the narrow metal passage.
Gabriel moved faster.
Behind them, voices echoed through the tunnel.
Then silence.
They dropped into an underground garage.
No one followed.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Finally Émilie asked:
“Who is Atlas waiting for?”
Gabriel leaned against the wall.
“I don't know.”
“You do.”
“I don't.”
“You've known about this dog all along.”
“I knew it belonged to Victor.”
“My father.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Atlas wasn't trained like an ordinary dog. He was taught to recognize specific chemical traces, voices, and objects.”
“For finding people?”
“Yes.”
“Then why would he stay at that street corner?”
Gabriel looked away.
“Because someone told him to.”
“Who?”
“The old man.”
“The man in the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“But if he worked for my father…”
Gabriel interrupted.
“He didn't.”
“Then who was he?”
“He was your father's driver.”
Émilie's expression hardened.
“You said he recruited you.”
“He did.”
“And the old man?”
“He betrayed him.”
“Why?”
Gabriel's answer came quietly.
“Because he helped your mother hide Lucie.”
Émilie stared.
“Where?”
“We don't know.”
“You just said Atlas knows.”
“Atlas knows something.”
“What?”
“I don't know.”
They returned to the street corner at dawn.
The blanket was gone again.
The dog was gone.
But someone had painted a red circle around the place where the bowl used to sit.
Inside the circle was a message.
317 WAS NEVER A ROOM.
Émilie stared.
Gabriel understood first.
“It wasn't the hospital room.”
“What was 317?”
“A date.”
“What date?”
“March 17.”
Émilie searched the notebook.
March 17.
Every year.
The same street.
The same notation.
Finally she found it.
MARCH 17. RETURN TO THE PLACE WHERE SHE FIRST LIED.
“What does that mean?”
Gabriel shook his head.
Then Émilie noticed something.
At the bottom of the page was an address.
Her childhood school.
They drove there immediately.
The school had been closed for years.
Dust covered the windows.
The main entrance was chained shut.
They entered through a broken side door.
Émilie remembered the hallway.
She remembered a classroom where she had once drawn pictures.
Room 17.
The door was unlocked.
Inside, the walls were covered with faded children's artwork.
Gabriel searched the teacher's desk.
Émilie walked to the blackboard.
There was a faint mark beneath layers of old paint.
A heart.
She scraped it with her fingernail.
Underneath was a message.
SHE DIDN'T LIE TO YOU. SHE LIED FOR YOU.
A noise came from the hallway.
Footsteps.
Gabriel motioned for silence.
A man walked past the doorway.
Then another.
Then another.
Émilie recognized the first man.
The one from the hospital.
The one who had looked at her key.
He stepped into the classroom.
“Hello, Émilie.”
She backed away.
“What do you want?”
“To take you home.”
“I'm home.”
“No.”
He smiled.
“You haven't been home since you were six.”
Gabriel stepped between them.
“Move.”
The man looked at him.
“Gabriel, your employer wants you alive.”
“Tell Victor to come himself.”
The man smiled wider.
“Victor isn't the one giving orders anymore.”
“Then who is?”
He looked at Émilie.
Her heart sank.
“You.”
“What?”
The man pulled a photograph from his pocket.
It showed Émilie's mother holding two infants.
Written across the bottom:
LUCIE AND ÉMILIE.
Then the man said:
“One of them was born to Victor.”
He paused.
“The other was adopted.”
Émilie stared.
“What are you saying?”
May you like
He leaned closer.
“You've spent your entire life searching for the wrong mother.”
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