Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN IN THE SUVGabriel watched the footage frame by frame.
The woman in the SUV turned her head.
Long dark hair.
Claire's profile.
Claire's posture.
Even the small silver earring Gabriel had given her on their tenth anniversary.
His hands shook.
“No.”
His security chief had disappeared.
Hannah was missing.
Eli was terrified.
And now his dead wife had appeared on a security camera.
Gabriel refused to believe it.
“Enhance it.”
The image sharpened.
The woman looked even more like Claire.
Then Gabriel noticed something.
A scar.
On the woman's left cheek.
Claire had never had one.
“It's not her.”
He exhaled.
Then Eli spoke.
“That’s not the woman in the car.”
Gabriel turned.
“What?”
Eli stared at the screen.
“Mom never wore her hair like that.”
Gabriel looked again.
Eli continued.
“Mom always put the left side behind her ear.”
He paused.
“That woman put the right side back.”
Gabriel stared at his son.
For the first time in eleven months, Eli was thinking clearly.
Not broken.
Not helpless.
Watching.
Remembering.
Gabriel crouched beside him.
“You're right.”
Eli looked at him.
“Are you still angry with me?”
Gabriel swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you stopped talking.”
Eli's eyes filled with tears.
“I stopped talking because every time I talked about Mom, you told me to forget her.”
Gabriel couldn't answer.
Then the mansion phone rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Gabriel picked it up.
A distorted voice spoke.
“Mr. Marlowe.”
“Who are you?”
“You've finally noticed.”
“Where is Hannah?”
“Safe.”
“Where is my son supposed to be safe?”
A quiet laugh.
“You should be asking where your wife was.”
Gabriel's heart stopped.
“What do you know about Claire?”
“I know what happened the night she died.”
“You killed her?”
“No.”
A pause.
“She killed herself.”
Gabriel's face twisted.
“You're lying.”
“She didn't want them to take Eli.”
“Who?”
“You still don't understand.”
The voice became colder.
“Your wife discovered what your family had been doing for generations.”
Gabriel frowned.
“My family?”
“Yes.”
Then the caller said something that made Gabriel go silent.
“Your father didn't die of a heart attack.”
Gabriel's father had died six years earlier.
Officially, cardiac arrest.
But Claire had always believed otherwise.
The call ended.
Gabriel immediately searched his father's medical records.
There it was.
A discrepancy.
The hospital discharge date didn't match the death certificate.
Someone had altered it.
He opened the family financial archive.
There was a hidden account.
Three hundred million dollars.
Recipient:
Marlowe Foundation Research Division.
Gabriel stared at the name.
He had never heard of it.
Then another document appeared.
A medical trial.
Participants:
Children between eight and ten years old.
Neurological trauma.
Spinal injury.
Gabriel's face went white.
Eli had suffered a spinal injury in the bombing.
And the trial had been created six months before the bombing.
Gabriel looked at his son.
Then at Hannah's empty chair.
Then back at the documents.
Someone had known Eli would survive.
Someone had planned around his injury.
That meant the explosion wasn't an accident.
It was an experiment.
Gabriel slammed the laptop shut.
Then the house lights flickered.
A monitor turned on by itself.
Live footage.
Hannah was sitting in a dark room.
Her hands were tied.
A masked man stood behind her.
He leaned toward the camera.
“Mr. Marlowe.”
Gabriel stepped closer.
The masked man removed his mask.
Gabriel recognized him.
His older brother, Julian.
But Julian had died seven years earlier.
The screen went black.
Gabriel whispered:
“That's impossible.”
Then Eli said quietly:
“Dad…”
Gabriel looked at him.
“There’s something Mom told me.”
“What?”
Eli pointed at the screen.
“She said if Uncle Julian ever came back…”
May you like
He swallowed.
“…we were already too late.”
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