Chapter 5 - The Missing WitnessThe man behind Victoria was perhaps fifty-five.
Gray hair.
Black suit.
No jewelry.
No obvious security detail.
He didn't need one.
People moved around him without being told.
That was the kind of authority you couldn't buy.
Victoria smiled.
“Arthur, meet Edward Vale.”
I knew the name.
Everyone in my old world knew it.
A philanthropist.
Banking executive.
Owner of several private equity firms.
A donor to hospitals.
Universities.
Political organizations.
A man photographed beside governors and senators.
A man with a clean public reputation.
The file on him in my memory was anything but clean.
Ethan once called him:
“The man behind the curtain.”
Edward looked at Emily.
“I regret that you had to experience this.”
Emily stepped behind me.
“You know me?”
“I know your family.”
“No.”
His tone softened.
“I know what they did to your father.”
My heartbeat changed.
Edward knew.
Everything.
I took one step forward.
“You killed Ethan.”
Edward smiled faintly.
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“Your employers.”
The words hit like a punch.
Ethan wasn't killed by the enemy.
He had been betrayed by the people we worked for.
Or so Edward wanted me to believe.
An agent stepped between us.
“Sir, step back.”
Edward didn't move.
“Arthur, you're making a mistake.”
“You've been monitoring my daughter.”
“We've been protecting her.”
“From what?”
“From herself.”
Emily's face hardened.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
“I know what you did.”
Edward's eyes narrowed.
Emily continued.
“You made Michael marry me.”
A silence fell.
Edward looked amused.
“You think your husband was chosen for you?”
“You approached him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your father would never trust us.”
Emily shook.
“So you used me.”
“No.”
Edward looked at me.
“We used your daughter to reach you.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because you possess something everyone wants.”
My mind returned to the steel case beneath my dashboard.
The case.
The old files.
The authorization card.
Edward smiled.
“You still don't know what you have, do you?”
Before I could answer, every agent's radio went off.
“Emergency.”
“North perimeter breach.”
“Civilian vehicle approaching.”
A black sedan crashed through the outer gate.
Gunshots followed.
Everyone ducked.
Edward vanished behind the marble column.
Victoria screamed.
Emily grabbed my hand.
We moved through the foyer as agents returned fire.
The sedan stopped.
Two men stepped out.
One was shot immediately.
The other ran.
An agent pursued him.
Then came a single gunshot.
Silence.
The agent returned alone.
“He's dead.”
I stared at the body through the window.
Something about the dead man's face bothered me.
I walked closer.
Then froze.
It was Ethan.
Or someone who looked exactly like him.
Same scars.
Same jaw.
Same eyes.
I rushed outside.
The body was still warm.
Emily followed.
“Dad?”
I knelt.
The man opened his eyes.
Not Ethan.
His voice was barely audible.
“Too late…”
“Who are you?”
He smiled.
“Ask… the woman…”
“What woman?”
“The woman… in the photograph.”
Then he died.
I looked back at the mansion.
The photograph from the basement.
Emily and Michael at the fundraiser.
There had been another person reflected in a window behind them.
A woman.
I had barely noticed her.
Now I remembered.
She was standing beside Edward Vale.
A red scarf.
Dark hair.
A scar near her chin.
The agent examined the body.
“Sir.”
“What?”
He pulled a wallet from the man's jacket.
Inside was an identification card.
Not fake.
Real.
Name:
Thomas Mercer.
Emily gasped.
“Dr. Mercer?”
The psychiatrist who had prepared her diagnosis.
The doctor from the recording.
Dead.
But the man who looked like Ethan had called him a woman.
The agent stood.
“There's a problem.”
“What?”
“The doctor's phone is missing.”
I looked at the mansion.
“Then whoever killed him took it.”
A second agent came running.
“We found something in the doctor's car.”
He handed me an envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
I turned it over.
Written on the back:
SHE KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED TO ETHAN.
Below that was an address.
An abandoned church.
Twenty miles away.
Emily looked at me.
“Who is she?”
I folded the photograph.
“I don't know.”
Then the agent's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“Sir…”
“What?”
“The church…”
May you like
He swallowed.
“There's someone there waiting for you.”
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