Chapter 12 - The Door Rebecca Left Open
Pastor Vale moved toward the glass booth.
Daniel stepped forward.
Vale raised the control device.
“Stay where you are.”
Luke backed away from the glass.
Rebecca’s recording continued.
“The bracelet does not contain the records. It contains access instructions. Every file you tried to erase was sent beyond Black Pine.”
Vale struck the booth keypad.
The door did not open.
Luke had locked it from inside.
Daniel almost smiled.
His son had always loved buttons.
Vale entered another code.
The display flashed red.
“How did you change it?” he demanded.
Luke held up the rubber dinosaur footprint.
“I used the tracker numbers.”
Vale turned toward Daniel with fury replacing every trace of his patient expression.
“You taught him to interfere with things he does not understand.”
“I taught him that locks should never keep him from his family.”
Vale pressed the flood control.
Nothing happened.
Cole’s voice sounded over the intercom.
“We disabled the pressure gate.”
Officers emerged from both ends of the tunnel.
Vale stepped backward, but there was nowhere to run.
Reed reached him first and removed the control device from his hand.
Cole opened the glass booth.
Daniel crossed the platform and pulled Luke into his arms.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Luke buried his face against Daniel’s shoulder and held on.
“I knew you’d follow Rex,” he whispered.
“I will always follow you.”
“Oliver got out?”
“He’s safe.”
Luke looked past him toward the tunnel.
“There was another person.”
Daniel’s attention sharpened.
“Who?”
“A lady.”
“Grandma?”
“No. The blue lady.”
Vale was escorted away before Daniel could question him further.
The silver bracelet opened with the brass key from Rebecca’s envelope.
Inside was not a data drive but a narrow strip of paper printed with a series of numbers.
Cole recognized them as archive coordinates and access codes.
The first coordinate led to a private storage facility sixty miles away.
A search team entered the facility before sunrise.
Inside were thousands of copied records from Black Pine, including financial accounts, custody documents, photographs and recordings.
Rebecca had preserved everything.
The evidence identified dozens of officials, attorneys and private guardians who had accepted money or altered reports. Several had already retired. Others still held powerful positions.
The records also contained information that helped locate five children who remained listed under false names.
All were found alive with families who had not known the placements were fraudulent.
Evelyn was charged with kidnapping, conspiracy, evidence destruction and falsifying records.
Pastor Vale faced additional charges connected to the wider network.
Amos agreed to cooperate in exchange for protection, though Cole made no promises about his sentence.
For Daniel, none of those victories answered the most important question.
Where was Rebecca?
The storage facility contained recordings from the months after her disappearance. In each one, she described helping children escape Black Pine.
The final recording was made nearly three years earlier.
“I reached the first camp,” Rebecca said. “It is larger than Black Pine, and the people in charge know Daniel is still searching. I cannot return home until I understand who is watching him.”
Her voice paused.
“If Luke hears this one day, tell him I remembered every birthday.”
The recording ended with a sound like a train passing underground.
No location was given.
No explanation followed.
Daniel listened to it twice while Luke slept against him in the hospital examination room.
Luke had no injuries. He was tired, frightened and hungry, but doctors expected him to recover fully.
When he woke, he asked for Rex.
Daniel repaired the dinosaur’s cut stitching as carefully as he could.
Luke watched.
“Mommy fixed him once,” Luke said.
Daniel stopped sewing.
May you like
“When?”
“In the tunnel.”
