Chapter 9 - Adrian’s Choice
The image froze.
Claire studied Adrian’s posture.
His right arm hung low, the gun aimed at the concrete. Mrs. Finch stood beside a small aircraft. Neither appeared to know they were being filmed.
A timestamp marked the corner.
Six minutes earlier.
“He isn’t a prisoner,” Richard said.
Eleanor watched Claire carefully.
“I told you.”
Claire refused to accept the easiest conclusion.
“We do not know what happened before the camera began.”
Victor laughed weakly.
“You always defend him.”
Claire looked down at him.
“And you always accuse the person who cannot answer.”
The terminal speakers activated.
Adrian’s voice filled the room.
“I know you are watching.”
The live image began moving again.
Adrian looked directly toward a camera mounted inside the hangar.
“Claire, Archive Eight must remain closed.”
She approached the screen.
“Where is our daughter?”
His face tightened.
“Safe.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I cannot give you a location while the system is transmitting.”
“Give me a name.”
Mrs. Finch stepped into view.
“Her name is Evelyn.”
Claire’s knees weakened.
Mia whispered, “That’s my middle name.”
Claire had chosen Mia’s middle name after waking from dreams of the baby she believed she had lost.
She had never told Eleanor why.
“How old is she?” Claire asked.
“Twelve,” Mrs. Finch said. “She will be thirteen in November.”
Claire calculated automatically.
The dates matched.
“Does she know about me?”
Adrian answered.
“She knows you survived.”
“Survived?”
“She was told you died in the accident.”
The symmetry was so cruel that Claire almost could not understand it.
Eleanor told Claire her daughter died.
Someone told her daughter that Claire died.
Two lives had been separated by matching lies.
“Who raised her?”
Mrs. Finch glanced toward Adrian.
He spoke carefully.
“A physician named Helen Ward protected her after my father was killed.”
Eleanor made a sound of recognition.
“Helen Ward died eight years ago.”
“No,” Adrian said. “She disappeared.”
“Where is Evelyn now?” Claire demanded.
Adrian stepped closer to the camera.
“She was moved when Thomas died. Only one person knew the new location.”
“Mrs. Finch?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
The hangar lights went out.
Gunfire cracked through the speakers.
The image shook violently.
Mia screamed.
Claire struck the terminal controls.
“Adrian!”
The video returned for half a second.
Mrs. Finch was on the ground.
Adrian fired toward someone outside the frame.
Then the signal vanished.
The countdown continued.
05:41.
Mercer ordered officers to locate the hangar, but the broadcast carried no visible coordinates.
Victor tried to stand.
Daniel forced him back down.
“Stay still.”
“If Archive Eight reveals protected locations, it may show the hangar.”
Eleanor nodded.
“Open it.”
Claire looked at the countdown.
The distorted voice spoke again.
“Opening the archive will broadcast every location to the same network that found Adrian.”
“Then stop the countdown.”
“Only you can stop it.”
“How?”
“Destroy the terminal.”
Eleanor stepped between Claire and the computer.
“No.”
Claire turned on her.
“You care more about the archive than the people inside it.”
“I care about your daughter.”
“You do not know where she is.”
“I know what Thomas built. Archive Eight will identify every person involved.”
“And expose them.”
“Witnesses can be protected.”
Mercer gave a bitter laugh.
“Not by the people who compromised my department.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“You admit it?”
“I admit someone removed evidence from Adrian’s vehicle before the lab received it.”
“Who?”
Mercer’s jaw tightened.
“My former chief.”
Victor smiled.
“Who received a position on the Ashcroft Foundation board six months later.”
Mercer aimed his gun at him.
“You arranged that.”
“I processed paperwork.”
Richard struck the wall.
“Everyone in this room knew something.”
“Not everyone,” Daniel said.
They looked at him.
Daniel’s expression had changed.
“I was fifteen when Claire’s accident happened. Mother sent me to school in Switzerland the next morning.”
Eleanor said nothing.
Daniel approached the terminal.
“I came home three months later. There was a locked bedroom in the east wing. I heard a baby crying inside.”
Claire stared at him.
“You never told me.”
“I thought I imagined it. Mother said I was having nightmares.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
Daniel’s voice broke.
“You kept Evelyn here.”
“For eleven days,” Eleanor said.
Claire could barely form the words.
“I was recovering ten miles away.”
“The hospital was watched.”
“By whom?”
Eleanor looked at Victor.
He shook his head.
“Do not place all of this on me.”
The countdown reached three minutes.
Claire held Mia’s hand.
She could destroy the terminal and protect the witnesses, but lose the only trail to Evelyn.
Or open the archive and risk leading their enemies directly to her.
Mia looked up.
“What would my sister want?”
Claire swallowed.
“I don’t know.”
“She would want to be safe.”
“Yes.”
“And she would want us to find her.”
“Yes.”
Mia looked at the terminal.
“Can we do both?”
Claire turned toward the metal box from the pool.
Her father had left a flash drive that everyone assumed was the key.
She had thrown it through the study window.
But she had not thrown the real drive.
The silver device in the box had been empty.
The actual storage chip remained hidden inside the backing of Adrian’s photograph.
Claire removed the picture and broke its frame.
A thin black chip fell into her palm.
Victor’s eyes widened.
“Thomas made an offline copy.”
Claire inserted the chip into the terminal.
The countdown stopped at 01:17.
A new message appeared.
ARCHIVE EIGHT TRANSFERRED.
REMOTE ACCESS DISABLED.
Eleanor stared at the screen.
“What did you do?”
Claire removed the chip.
“I made sure no one opens it but me.”
The underground lights went out.
In the darkness, a child’s voice whispered through the speaker.
May you like
“Mom?”
It was not Mia.
