Chapter 26 - the last house
The Whitmore mansion was evacuated before sunset.
Lucy protested.
Noah asked whether he had done something wrong.
Emily refused to leave Grace.
Daniel gave them only one answer.
“We’re going somewhere safer.”
He did not tell them Helena might be coming.
Caroline understood immediately.
“She thinks something is still hidden there.”
“Yes.”
“The second copy.”
Daniel nodded.
Years earlier Caroline had told Helena there were two copies of the Halcyon evidence.
The first had been inside the white rabbit.
But that memory card had not contained everything.
Caroline looked toward the old staircase.
“I never told you where the other one was.”
Daniel stared.
“You still have evidence hidden in the house?”
“I thought it had been destroyed during the renovation.”
“Where?”
Caroline walked to the bottom of the staircase.
The main newel post had been replaced after Caroline disappeared.
But the lower foundation remained original.
She knelt.
“There was a hollow cavity here.”
Daniel remembered Lucy’s strange fascination with the stairs.
The night of the dinner.
The bat.
The camera flash.
The entire nightmare had begun in this part of the house.
Agents removed the decorative base.
Inside was nothing.
Caroline looked confused.
“I put a drive there.”
“When?”
“Three days before the marina.”
“Who knew?”
“No one.”
A voice came from behind them.
“Lucy.”
Grace stood in the foyer.
Daniel turned.
“What?”
“Lucy used to sit on these stairs when she was three.”
Caroline went still.
Grace continued.
“She saw you open that panel.”
Caroline closed her eyes.
“Caroline’s call,” Daniel whispered.
Lucy knows without knowing.
The white rabbit had been one hiding place.
The stairs were another.
But the drive was gone.
Then Daniel saw a scratch inside the cavity.
Fresh.
Someone had already opened it.
Marcus checked security.
Nine seconds of missing footage from the previous search.
The envelope on the kitchen table.
Helena had entered the house then.
She already had the second drive.
Daniel felt his hope collapse.
Caroline shook her head.
“No.”
“What?”
“The drive was encrypted.”
“Can she open it?”
“Not without the phrase.”
“Who knows the phrase?”
Caroline looked toward the upstairs hall.
“Lucy.”
Daniel stared.
“No.”
“Not intentionally.”
“Caroline.”
“I built the password around a bedtime sentence she used to say.”
Helena did not need the child physically.
She needed something Lucy remembered.
Grace whispered, “That’s why the dinner was a test.”
Everything returned to the beginning.
Helena had wanted to know how much Lucy remembered.
The blue room.
The white rabbit.
The stairs.
The phrase.
Daniel’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Helena.
“You have something I need.”
Daniel almost laughed.
“You already took the drive.”
A pause.
“So you found the compartment.”
“What do you need from Lucy?”
Silence.
Then Helena said, “Bring her home.”
“No.”
“Then the information on this drive dies with me.”
“You’re finished.”
“People have said that before.”
“Not with your ledger in federal custody.”
“Copies are stories. I still have names your mother never wrote down.”
Daniel looked at Caroline.
Helena continued.
“And you want them.”
He did.
That was the problem.
There were still children whose names had not been restored.
Still parents who did not know where their children went.
Still people officially dead who might be alive.
Helena knew exactly what he wanted.
Daniel said, “Lucy is not coming.”
“Then you come.”
“Why?”
“Because this began in your house.”
The call ended.
Marcus immediately said no.
Daniel ignored him.
Caroline did not.
“You are not going alone.”
“She wants me.”
“She wanted all of us divided. That is the only strategy she has left.”
Daniel looked at the staircase.
Then at the empty cavity.
An idea formed.
“We give her what she expects.”
Marcus frowned.
“What?”
Daniel looked toward the evidence photographs from the first dinner.
The bat.
The staircase.
The image that had nearly cost him his daughter.
“She tried to turn me into the villain once.”
Caroline understood.
“You think she’ll do it again.”
“Yes.”
May you like
Daniel looked at Marcus.
“This time we let every camera run.”
