Chapter 10 - THE CROSS ESTATE
The Cross estate had been abandoned for more than thirty years.
It stood near the Canadian border behind overgrown fields and a forest of black pine. Evelyn and Jonathan had lived there as children before their father’s death.
Maya opposed the meeting.
“It’s an obvious trap.”
“I know.”
“Then we arrest Richard before he gets there.”
“On what charge?”
“Witness intimidation, financial crimes, conspiracy.”
“His lawyers will delay everything. He says he has proof about Evelyn.”
“He says what will make you come.”
Emma looked at the photograph again.
“Then let him believe it worked.”
Agents positioned themselves throughout the estate hours before midnight. Emma wore a recording device, a tracking transmitter, and a thin protective vest beneath her coat.
Richard arrived alone.
He entered through the rear of the house carrying a metal case.
Emma waited in the former ballroom. Moonlight passed through broken windows, illuminating dust and collapsed furniture.
Richard stopped several feet away.
“You cut your hair,” he said.
Emma had shortened it that morning after seeing her face on television. She wanted no resemblance to the woman Margaret had controlled.
“You poisoned me.”
Richard’s expression remained still.
“I never poisoned you.”
“You collected the medication.”
“For my mother.”
“Margaret wasn’t pregnant.”
“No.”
“Then why?”
He set the case on a table.
“Because Thomas told us your pregnancies were dangerous.”
“To whom?”
“To you.”
Emma almost laughed.
“You expect me to believe you were protecting me?”
“Lantern responds to hereditary access. We didn’t understand what would happen if you carried a child before the system was stabilized.”
“So you experimented on me.”
“I stopped the pregnancies.”
The coldness of his admission struck harder than denial.
Emma stepped toward him.
“You killed our children.”
Richard’s jaw tightened.
“I prevented something worse.”
“There is nothing worse.”
“You haven’t seen the archive.”
“Neither have you.”
Richard opened the case.
Inside were medical records, photographs, and a metal card the size of a hotel key.
Alice’s card.
“What does it unlock?” Emma asked.
“A secured neural record.”
She stared at him.
“Explain.”
“Evelyn didn’t store Lantern in a building or computer system. She distributed it through encrypted biological sequences and external data servers. The key activates a decoding process tied to a genetic match.”
“My genetic match.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Richard looked toward the floor.
“Beneath this house.”
Emma remembered Hale’s claim that the archive was not at Lantern House.
He had not mentioned the Cross estate.
“Why bring me here now?”
“Because Thomas is coming.”
Emma heard movement through her earpiece. Agents had detected vehicles approaching the northern road.
Richard continued.
“He believes you have the metal card. He doesn’t know Alice gave it to me.”
“Why didn’t you open the archive yourself?”
“I need you.”
“And after I open it?”
“That depends on what we find.”
Emma looked into the face of the man she had once loved.
“Did you marry me because of the contract?”
“At first.”
The answer was immediate.
“At first?” she repeated.
“I was twenty-five. My mother told me your father had stolen something that could destroy our family. She told me getting close to you was the only way to recover it.”
“So every conversation was planned.”
“Not every conversation.”
“Did you ever love me?”
Richard looked away.
The hesitation was worse than a lie.
“I tried,” he said.
Emma felt strangely calm.
“You tried to love me while forging my signatures and ending my pregnancies.”
“I didn’t forge the signatures. My mother did.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“And my father?”
Richard’s face changed.
“I didn’t cut the brake line.”
“Were you there?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Daniel asked me to come.”
Emma had not expected that.
“Why would he call you?”
“He knew I was working for Thomas. He offered me a deal.”
“What deal?”
“The archive in exchange for your safety.”
“Did you accept?”
“I told him I needed time.”
“And then he died.”
“Thomas sent someone else.”
“Who?”
Richard looked beyond her.
A floorboard creaked in the dark corridor.
Richard reached into the case and gave Emma the metal card.
“Run.”
The windows exploded inward.
Gunfire tore through the ballroom.
Emma dropped behind a stone column as Richard pulled a pistol from his coat and fired toward the doorway.
Federal agents moved in from outside.
A man shouted through the darkness.
“Emma!”
She knew the voice.
Thomas Mercer stepped into the moonlight.
He was older than the man from her childhood, but the silver lighter remained in his hand.
He looked at her with something disturbingly close to affection.
“My daughter,” he said.
Richard fired.
Thomas disappeared behind the wall.
Agents shouted commands.
Emma ran toward the staircase while gunfire echoed through the house.
The metal card grew warm in her hand.
At the top of the stairs, a hidden panel opened by itself.
A blue light appeared inside.
Emma stepped closer.
A woman’s recorded voice spoke from the darkness.
“Genetic identity confirmed.”
Emma froze.
May you like
The voice continued.
“Welcome, Emma Cross.”
