Chapter 5 - The PhotographDaniel survived the shooting.
Barely.
The bullet had missed his heart by inches.
The group hid inside an abandoned storage facility outside the city.
Ruiz called in a surgeon she trusted.
Nobody else.
Not the hospital.
Not the police.
Not the government.
Too many names were compromised.
While Daniel slept, Ethan couldn't stop thinking about what he had said.
You.
Why would Victor Morrow care about a twelve-year-old boy?
Claire sat beside him.
“You need to know something.”
Ethan looked up.
“What?”
“Before you were born, your father worked for Morrow.”
Daniel wasn't always innocent.
He had been an accountant.
He handled the financial records.
Then he discovered transactions that didn't make sense.
Payments to politicians.
Payments to judges.
Payments to police officers.
Payments to people who later disappeared.
“He tried to expose them,” Claire said.
“And they kidnapped him.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did they leave us alone?”
“They didn't.”
Claire reached into her bag.
She pulled out an old photograph.
Ethan recognized it immediately.
It showed him at age six.
Standing beside Richard.
A birthday cake in front of them.
At first it looked normal.
Then Ethan noticed something in the background.
A man wearing a dark suit.
He was staring directly at the camera.
Victor Morrow.
Ethan's blood ran cold.
“I remember this.”
“I know.”
“What was he doing there?”
Claire shook her head.
“He wasn't supposed to be.”
Ethan stared at the photograph.
Then he saw something else.
A tiny red mark on the wall behind them.
Three horizontal scratches.
“What is that?”
Claire's expression changed.
“Where did you see that?”
“In the picture.”
She took the photograph.
Her fingers began trembling.
“That's your father's old code.”
“What does it mean?”
“Safe.”
Ethan looked around the room.
“Safe where?”
Daniel woke.
“Basement.”
Claire turned.
Daniel stared at the photograph.
“He found it.”
“What?”
“The room.”
Ruiz rushed over.
“What room?”
Daniel slowly sat up.
“When I was working for Morrow, I found a hidden archive beneath his first office.”
“What was in it?”
Daniel swallowed.
“Names.”
“Whose names?”
“Everyone.”
Politicians.
Judges.
Police chiefs.
Businessmen.
Doctors.
Even funeral directors.
Ruiz stared at him.
“Why didn't you expose it?”
“I tried.”
Daniel's face darkened.
“Morrow caught me.”
“And the archive?”
“It's still there.”
Ethan looked at the photograph again.
The three scratches.
“Why did you put the mark there?”
Daniel looked at him.
“I didn't.”
Silence.
Claire whispered:
“Then who did?”
A floorboard creaked behind them.
Everyone turned.
The warehouse door was closed.
Ruiz raised her weapon.
Something slid under the door.
A photograph.
Ethan picked it up.
His heart stopped.
It was a recent photograph of him asleep in the safehouse.
Taken from inside the room.
On the back were five words.
May you like
YOU WERE NEVER HIDING FROM US.
Then the lights went out.
