Chapter 12 - The Name Inside the Cassette
Glass exploded across the room.
Natalie hit the floor.
Grant dragged her behind the bed with his uninjured arm.
Eleanor pulled a pistol from beneath her coat.
The motel room door handle moved.
Once.
Twice.
Then the lock burst.
Eleanor fired.
A man collapsed in the doorway.
Another shot came from outside.
Eleanor cried out and fell.
Natalie crawled toward her.
Blood spread across Eleanor’s shoulder.
“Go.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Grant knows the route.”
Another bullet struck the wall.
Grant kicked open the bathroom window.
Behind the motel ran a frozen drainage corridor.
They climbed through.
Eleanor stumbled.
Natalie caught her.
For the first time she felt the weight of the woman who had given birth to her.
Warm blood soaked Natalie’s sleeve.
They moved beneath the highway bridge and reached an old pickup hidden behind a maintenance shed.
Grant drove.
Natalie held pressure on Eleanor’s wound.
“Who found us?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“Not Conrad directly.”
“How do you know?”
“He would want the ledger first.”
The men had fired immediately.
Someone wanted Natalie dead.
That meant a different faction.
Or someone desperate to keep the Marrow list hidden.
Grant drove to a rural veterinary clinic whose owner apparently owed Eleanor a favor.
The veterinarian removed the bullet.
Eleanor survived.
At dawn, they opened Grant’s storage unit.
The metal cassette was still there.
A steel box no larger than a hardback book.
Three locks.
Eleanor knew two combinations.
The third required Natalie’s fingerprint.
“How?” Natalie asked.
“Elaine prepared it.”
“My fingerprint?”
“When you were seventeen.”
The car crash.
Hospital.
Elaine had preserved Natalie’s print in the lock system then.
Natalie pressed her thumb.
Click.
Inside was a microfilm cartridge.
A handwritten letter.
And a photograph.
Natalie picked up the photograph first.
Elaine.
Eleanor.
Richard’s father Thomas.
Martin Hale.
A fifth person stood beside them.
Natalie recognized him.
Agent Daniel Ross.
Except the photograph was dated 1995.
Ross would have been far too young.
Grant leaned closer.
“That isn’t Ross.”
Eleanor whispered,
“His father.”
On the back:
THOMAS COLE
ELAINE COLE
ELEANOR VALE
MARTIN HALE
SPECIAL AGENT DAVID ROSS
Natalie looked at Eleanor.
“Daniel Ross’s father investigated Conrad?”
“Yes.”
“And what happened to him?”
“Officially?”
Eleanor’s expression hardened.
“Suicide.”
Natalie already knew what unofficially meant.
The microfilm contained the Marrow list.
Hundreds of names spanning decades.
Many were marked inactive.
Some deceased.
Some retired.
Twenty-three active.
One name made Grant curse.
JUDITH SLOANE.
Natalie stared.
“No.”
Eleanor said nothing.
Judith.
Richard’s real attorney.
The woman who had supposedly protected him.
The woman who knew about the trust.
The woman who guided them to the archive.
Natalie felt betrayal burn through her.
Then she noticed the notation beside Judith’s name.
MARROW ASSET 12.
STATUS: REVERSED.
“Reversed means what?”
Eleanor exhaled.
“She changed sides.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“So we can trust her?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Another name appeared.
PAUL MERCER.
ACTIVE.
No surprise.
Then:
DANIEL ROSS.
Natalie stopped.
Grant whispered,
“Agent Ross?”
Beside his name:
MARROW LEGACY.
STATUS UNRESOLVED.
Natalie felt suddenly cold.
Not active.
Not reversed.
Unresolved.
The final active name was worse.
RICHARD COLE.
Natalie stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Eleanor looked equally shocked.
“I didn’t know.”
Grant leaned over the film.
Richard’s name carried a date.
Seven years earlier.
The same year Elaine contacted Grant about the cassette.
Natalie read the notation.
RICHARD COLE
ASSET DESIGNATION PENDING
CONTACT INITIATED BY E.C.
Natalie’s voice disappeared.
E.C.
Elaine Cole.
Their mother had apparently initiated Richard into Marrow.
Or attempted to.
Grant shook his head.
“Dad would have told us.”
Natalie thought of everything Richard had not told them.
The microphones.
The bait will.
The secret attorney.
The federal investigation.
Maybe he would not have.
They returned to the letter inside the cassette.
Elaine’s handwriting.
Natalie,
If you are reading this, then Richard survived longer than I feared, or not long enough.
There are things I did to protect you that you may never forgive.
There are things Richard agreed to that he may no longer remember agreeing to.
Do not accuse him until you understand what Marrow does to people.
Your father loves you.
That is the one truth in this family that was never manufactured.
Natalie stopped reading.
Her hands trembled.
There are things Richard agreed to that he may no longer remember agreeing to.
She looked at Grant.
“What does that mean?”
May you like
Eleanor answered quietly.
“It means Conrad wasn’t the only person manipulating memory.”
