Chapter 8 - The Last WitnessDavid pointed the gun at Karen.
She didn't move.
“Tell me the truth.”
Karen stared at Arthur's body.
“I have told you the truth.”
“Not all of it.”
“No.”
“Who is the seventh name?”
Karen looked at Lily.
Then at David.
“Me.”
David lowered the gun slightly.
“You?”
“They put my name there because I was the only person who knew where Benjamin had been moved.”
“Who put it there?”
“I don't know.”
David slammed his hand against the wall.
“Everybody knows everything except the one thing I need.”
Karen looked toward the chapel entrance.
“We don't have time.”
“You're not going anywhere.”
“I know.”
She reached into her pocket.
She pulled out a cassette recorder.
David stared.
“Your grandfather gave me this.”
She pressed play.
Arthur's voice filled the chamber.
“If you're hearing this, I am already dead.”
David listened.
“My son David has been told his twins never survived. That was a lie. Benjamin was taken. Lily remained in the house.”
A pause.
“Someone inside Blackthorn has continued searching for the children.”
Another pause.
“The person knows every security code, every passage, every family secret.”
David's eyes narrowed.
Arthur continued.
“They also know Karen was never your wife by choice.”
David looked at her.
The recording continued.
“Karen was forced into this family because she was the only surviving witness from St. Orlan.”
David stared.
“Surviving witness?”
Karen closed her eyes.
The cassette continued.
“She saw who ordered the children moved.”
The recording stopped.
David turned.
“Who?”
Karen whispered.
“My mother.”
David frowned.
“Your mother?”
“She worked at St. Orlan too.”
“What happened to her?”
“She disappeared.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
The old speaker crackled.
Then Arthur's recorded voice returned.
“But she left one thing behind.”
David looked at the cassette.
“What?”
“A ledger.”
Karen inhaled sharply.
“No.”
Arthur continued.
“The ledger identifies every child, every payment, every person involved.”
David asked, “Where is it?”
Karen looked at him.
“It was inside the heirloom box.”
David remembered the box.
The missing pages.
The cut velvet.
Someone had already taken the ledger.
Karen whispered, “Which means they have it.”
A loudspeaker suddenly activated.
A man's voice echoed through the tunnel.
“Not quite.”
David raised the gun.
The voice continued.
“David, your daughter is safe.”
Lily clutched his hand.
“Who are you?”
A laugh echoed.
“You've spent eight years asking the wrong question.”
David stepped toward the speaker.
“Where is my son?”
“With me.”
“Let me see him.”
“You will.”
The speaker crackled.
“But first…”
A screen turned on.
Benjamin appeared again.
This time he was standing.
Beside him stood a man.
David's heart stopped.
The man turned toward the camera.
David recognized him.
His father's former lawyer.
A man who had supposedly died fifteen years earlier.
He smiled.
“Hello, David.”
Then he lifted a second photograph.
It showed Lily.
Sleeping.
In her bedroom.
Taken that night.
“You should never have opened the box.”
The screen went black.
Lily whispered, “Daddy?”
David looked at her.
“What?”
“Did that man say my name?”
David hugged her.
“Yes.”
She started crying.
“He knows me.”
David tightened his arms.
“He won't touch you.”
But beneath the floor, something moved.
A hidden mechanism clicked.
The stone tiles beneath Lily's feet split apart.
May you like
She screamed.
And disappeared into the darkness.
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