Chapter 11 - The Boy No One Remembered
The words disappeared.
Silence settled over the underground chamber.
Nathan stared at the blank screen.
"The boy..."
"I've seen him."
His wife turned immediately.
"Where?"
Nathan rubbed his forehead.
"I don't know."
"It feels like a memory."
The Director motioned toward the forensic specialists.
"Recover every file from these computers."
The lead technician frowned.
"Sir..."
"The hard drives are gone."
"What?"
"They've all been removed."
Only empty slots remained inside the servers.
Someone had erased years of surveillance within minutes.
The mysterious voice had stayed several steps ahead.
Meanwhile, the young woman examined the photograph that had appeared on the screen just before it went dark.
She enlarged it on her phone.
The boy looked about ten years old.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
A small scar beneath his left ear.
Nathan suddenly inhaled sharply.
"The scar."
Everyone looked at him.
"I know that scar."
He rushed toward an old filing cabinet.
Inside one drawer lay hundreds of family photographs collected from the vault.
Nathan flipped through them rapidly.
Birthday parties.
Business dinners.
Charity events.
Then...
He froze.
One picture showed his father standing beside a group of orphaned children during a hospital fundraiser twenty-three years earlier.
Near the back of the group...
The same boy.
The same scar.
The same gray eyes.
Nathan pointed.
"There."
The Director compared both images.
"It's him."
"But why hide him?"
Nathan's wife noticed something even stranger.
The boy wasn't looking at the camera.
He was looking directly at Nathan's father.
And Nathan's father...
Was smiling at him in a way no one had ever seen.
Not a business smile.
Not a public smile.
A father's smile.
The realization spread across the room.
The Director spoke first.
"This boy wasn't an orphan."
Nathan whispered,
"My father had another child..."
Before anyone could respond...
One of the officers called from the tunnel entrance.
"Director!"
"We found footprints."
"Fresh?"
"Less than ten minutes old."
The Director nodded.
"Follow them."
The trail led away from the mansion.
Not toward the forest.
May you like
Not toward the river.
Toward the old family cemetery.
