Chapter 14 - THE HOUSE OF WHITE ROSES
The attacker never reached the interview room.
A tactical officer intercepted him near the stairwell. After a brief exchange of gunfire, the masked man fled through the parking structure and disappeared inside a maintenance vehicle.
Joanna survived.
The storage drive remained intact.
Its contents exposed dozens of officials, financial accounts, and safe properties connected to White Rose. Federal agencies took control of the investigation, though Reed remained attached because of the child-abuse case.
Eleanor Vale vanished before officers reached her estate.
Her husband, Leonard, claimed he knew nothing about her activities.
Nobody believed him.
Rachel visited Charles in the hospital under police supervision.
He looked older than he had two weeks earlier. Tubes ran from his arm, and his voice remained weak.
“Who leads the Circle?” she asked.
Charles stared at the television.
“I don’t know.”
“Victor said you failed. You said he wasn’t the Director. Joanna says Eleanor controlled access. Who is above them?”
Charles’s eyes shifted toward the officer near the door.
“Some questions get people killed.”
“Children have already been nearly killed.”
“I never wanted Emma hurt.”
“You locked the kitchen while she was unconscious.”
“I was trying to delay the police.”
“To protect Vanessa.”
“To keep Victor’s men from entering while the doors were open.”
Rachel paused.
“What?”
Charles looked at her.
“There were two vehicles waiting outside the east gate that morning. Vanessa told Victor she would cause a diversion. His men were coming for the rabbit.”
“Why didn’t you warn us?”
“Because they were listening through the house system. If I openly resisted, they would have killed everyone.”
“You told us to lie.”
“I needed Vanessa to believe I was cooperating.”
Rachel wanted to dismiss the explanation as another manipulation.
But surveillance equipment had been found inside the estate walls. Cameras and microphones that Charles claimed he had never installed.
“Why did you keep Caroline in the basement?”
“She came to me after escaping Victor’s people. She said the house was the only location he would not search immediately.”
“The chain?”
“Caroline locked the door from inside.”
“Diane said you confined her.”
“Diane was protecting herself.”
“What about the recording where you threatened Caroline?”
Charles closed his eyes.
“Victor was listening. Caroline and I staged arguments.”
“She had bruises.”
“Vanessa caused some. Victor’s men caused others.”
“You expect me to believe you were secretly protecting her?”
“No. I expect you to understand that I spent thirty years obeying monsters and occasionally convinced myself that small acts of resistance made me decent.”
That was the first honest thing he had said.
“Where did Caroline go after the lighthouse?”
“She escaped through an old service tunnel. I received one message two months later.”
“What did it say?”
“Stop looking. He is watching Rachel.”
“Who was watching me?”
Charles looked directly at her.
“Daniel.”
Rachel felt a chill.
“You said Daniel was hiding.”
“He was. Then something changed.”
“What?”
“He began working with the Circle.”
“No.”
“Caroline found proof.”
“What proof?”
“A photograph of Daniel meeting the Director after his supposed death.”
Rachel remembered Daniel’s letter warning her.
Protect Emma.
Do not trust the officer who says he found me.
It sounded like the words of someone fighting the Circle.
Unless the letter was designed to manipulate her from the beginning.
“Who is the Director?”
Charles reached beneath his pillow and removed a folded photograph.
“I kept this because I needed to remember what fear looked like.”
The image showed a private dinner aboard a yacht. Victor sat at one side of the table. Eleanor Vale sat beside him. Charles and Diane were present.
At the head of the table sat a man whose face had been cut from the photograph.
Only his left hand remained visible.
He wore a black ring.
Rachel turned the image over.
A date was written on the back.
The dinner occurred four months after Victor’s reported death.
Below the date, Caroline had written one sentence.
The Director has Rachel’s eyes.
Rachel stared at Charles.
“What does that mean?”
Before he could answer, alarms sounded from his monitor.
His body stiffened.
The heart monitor produced a continuous tone.
Doctors rushed into the room and pushed Rachel aside.
Someone had introduced a fast-acting toxin into his IV line.
Charles’s hand fell from the bed.
May you like
Inside his palm, written in blue ink, was a single name.
Thomas.
