Chapter 3 - THE RECORDINGMason grabbed the emergency ladder behind the storage shelves.
We climbed through a vent shaft seconds before the steel door opened.
Below us, Julian entered the room.
I watched through the metal grate.
He looked perfectly calm.
His suit was wet.
His hair was dripping.
He didn’t look like a man who had just watched his wife drown.
He looked like a man arriving at work.
Chloe stood behind him.
One hand on her stomach.
“Did you find them?” she asked.
“No.”
“You said they were dead.”
“I said they should be dead.”
She swallowed.
“What if Mason talks?”
Julian’s expression changed.
“He won’t.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“Because he spent fifteen years pretending to be a cripple.”
Chloe went pale.
I felt Mason’s hand close around my arm.
Julian knew.
He had known.
All these years.
He knew Mason could walk.
That meant the lie had been a battle between them.
And somehow I had been the only person excluded from it.
Julian pulled out his phone.
“Call the doctor.”
Chloe frowned.
“Which doctor?”
“The one who changed the records.”
My stomach tightened.
There had been dozens of doctors.
Mason leaned toward me.
“This is why I disappeared from the family business.”
I whispered, “You left because of Julian?”
“I left because I discovered someone inside our family was feeding him information.”
Julian walked closer to the vent.
He stopped.
I stopped breathing.
For one terrifying second, I thought he could hear us.
Then he turned away.
“Burn everything.”
Chloe stared at him.
“Everything?”
“The files. The recordings. The old ledger.”
“Where is the ledger?”
Julian smiled.
“Valerie’s father left one copy.”
“Where?”
“Sterling.”
Mason’s eyes widened.
“They found the vault.”
I looked at him.
“What vault?”
Before he could answer, something fell through the vent.
A small black object.
Mason caught it.
A phone.
It began to ring.
The screen showed one word.
UNKNOWN.
Mason answered.
A distorted voice spoke.
“You have three hours.”
Mason’s expression went rigid.
“For what?”
“Bring the ledger to Sterling Shipyard.”
“Who are you?”
A pause.
Then the voice answered.
“Someone your father trusted.”
The call ended.
Mason handed the phone to me.
“That voice,” he whispered.
“You recognize it?”
“I haven’t heard it in fifteen years.”
“Who is it?”
He looked directly at me.
“Our mother.”
My heart stopped.
“That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
Below us, Julian suddenly looked up.
His eyes locked on the vent.
He smiled.
May you like
And then he said:
“Your mother isn’t dead, Valerie.”
