Chapter 11 - The BetrayalRobert finally chose a side
Robert stood perfectly still.
“You think it's me?”
Nora's hands trembled.
“I saw the messages.”
Dad raised his weapon.
Robert looked at him.
“I didn't send anything.”
“Prove it,” Dad said.
Robert slowly put his phone on the table.
Dad examined it.
Nothing.
Then Nora whispered:
“Not that phone.”
She pointed toward Robert's jacket.
Inside was another device.
A tiny transmitter.
Robert looked shocked.
“I've never seen that.”
Dad removed it.
Someone had planted it.
A signal began flashing.
Dad's eyes hardened.
“They're listening.”
Everyone moved.
The apartment was compromised.
We escaped through the rear stairwell.
Three minutes later, police vehicles surrounded the building.
Too many.
Too fast.
Dad looked at Marianne.
“Someone alerted them.”
She nodded.
We disappeared into the subway system.
Robert followed silently.
After several stops, he finally spoke.
“My mother was right about one thing.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“I was weak.”
“You were cruel.”
“Yes.”
He swallowed.
“And I was afraid.”
He looked at Dad.
“I know I don't deserve forgiveness.”
Dad said nothing.
“I know Elena will never trust me again.”
I looked away.
“But I can still help.”
Dad finally responded.
“Then help.”
Robert nodded.
That evening, he showed us the layout of Judge Avery's vault.
Two entrances.
One elevator.
One maintenance corridor.
Three biometric locks.
Then he said:
“There is another way.”
He pointed to an old blueprint.
“Here.”
An abandoned service tunnel.
Dad recognized it.
“Red Hollow.”
Robert nodded.
“The tunnel connects to the judge's old archive building.”
“Why would a judge have a tunnel?”
“He doesn't.”
Robert looked at me.
“Voss does.”
The plan was simple.
Enter through the tunnel.
Retrieve the original file.
Release the evidence publicly.
Expose the judge before he could destroy it.
But there was one problem.
Someone had already entered the tunnel.
We found fresh footprints.
Dad knelt.
“Three people.”
Robert corrected him.
“Four.”
“How do you know?”
Robert pointed.
“One print is smaller.”
A child.
Maya.
The missing girl.
I stared at the footprint.
“How could she be here?”
Robert's face changed.
“She was never missing.”
“What?”
“She was a witness.”
Diane had hidden her.
Voss had been trying to find her for years.
We followed the tunnel.
At the end was a steel door.
Robert entered a code.
The door opened.
Inside was a room filled with files.
And sitting on the floor was Maya.
Now eight years old.
She looked at me.
“You're Elena.”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“My mother told me about you.”
I crouched.
“Where is your mother?”
Maya's face fell.
“She's dead.”
Silence.
“Voss killed her.”
She handed me a small envelope.
“He told me to give this to your father when the right woman found me.”
Dad took it.
Inside was a photograph.
It showed my father twenty-five years earlier.
Standing beside Diane.
And beside Diane was Gabriel Voss.
All three smiling.
On the back were four words.
FRANK KNEW EVERYTHING.
Dad stared at the photograph.
Maya whispered:
“He wasn't hunting Voss.”
She looked at me.
“He was working with him.”
I turned toward my father.
He looked like a man watching the floor disappear beneath his feet.
May you like
And then the tunnel lights came on.
Someone behind us began applauding.
