Chapter 13 - The False Detective
Adrian moved first.
He struck the scarred man’s arm as a pistol emerged from beneath the jacket. The weapon fired into the ceiling. Sparks rained across the servers.
Celeste screamed.
The manager tackled the man from the side. They crashed into the central table, scattering files and keys across the floor.
Margaret grabbed Emily and pulled her behind a server cabinet.
Victor joined Adrian, forcing the gunman’s wrist downward.
The pistol fired again.
The bullet struck a monitor.
Gabriel, or the man calling himself Gabriel, twisted free with startling strength. He drove his elbow into Adrian’s face and reached for the fallen weapon.
Lorraine stepped on his hand.
Her jeweled heel crushed his fingers against the floor.
“Move,” she said, “and I break every bone.”
He laughed through clenched teeth.
“You should have done that thirty years ago.”
Lorraine froze.
Margaret emerged from behind the cabinet.
“Who are you?”
The live connection with Thomas remained open. His voice came through the damaged speaker.
“His name is Daniel Shaw. Gabriel was his older brother.”
The man on the floor looked toward the screen.
“You don’t deserve to say his name.”
Thomas continued.
“Gabriel discovered the Ashford network and helped us after Blackwater Point. Daniel worked for Lorraine.”
Lorraine’s heel pressed harder.
“He was a courier. Nothing more.”
Daniel laughed again.
“I carried the orders you were too cowardly to deliver yourself.”
Emily looked at the scar beside his eye.
“What happened to Gabriel?”
Daniel’s expression changed.
“My brother believed Thomas and Margaret would expose the network. He gave them access codes, safe locations, names of officers who could be trusted.”
Thomas said, “Gabriel was killed six months after my disappearance.”
“By whom?” Emily asked.
Daniel looked up at Lorraine.
Lorraine did not deny it.
Adrian tightened his grip on Daniel’s arm.
“You pretended to be your dead brother.”
“I used his credentials. His contacts. His unfinished investigation.”
“For what purpose?” Margaret asked.
“To recover the ledger.”
“So you could expose Lorraine?”
Daniel looked toward the archive transfer display.
“No. So I could sell it.”
The transfer reached eighty-eight percent.
Thomas’s image flickered.
“Emily, disconnect the system.”
Gabriel’s false identity was exposed, but Thomas had warned her not to trust Margaret. Victor wanted the archive destroyed. Lorraine wanted control. Daniel wanted to sell it.
And Thomas himself had hidden for seven years.
“Why should I trust you?” Emily asked.
Thomas looked at her.
“You shouldn’t.”
The answer silenced everyone.
“Trust the evidence,” he continued. “The transfer destination has been compromised.”
The screen showed a network map. Red markers spread across multiple countries.
“Who compromised it?” Margaret asked.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel struggled against Adrian and Victor.
“You built a system no one could trace.”
“I built it years ago. Someone altered it.”
The transfer reached ninety-one percent.
Lorraine removed her heel from Daniel’s hand and picked up the pistol.
She aimed it at him.
“Who hired you?”
Daniel smiled.
“You still think you are the highest person in the room.”
Lorraine fired.
The bullet struck the floor beside his head.
“Answer.”
Daniel flinched but continued smiling.
“The person who financed Thomas’s disappearance.”
Margaret looked toward the screen.
“You told me you escaped the clinic.”
Thomas’s image flickered again.
“I did.”
Daniel shook his head.
“No, Thomas. You were allowed to escape.”
Emily’s pulse quickened.
“By whom?”
Daniel looked directly at her.
“Your grandmother.”
Emily stared.
Both of her grandmothers were dead.
Margaret’s mother had died before Emily was born. Thomas’s mother, Eleanor Bennett, had died when Emily was fourteen.
Or so she had been told.
“That’s impossible.”
Daniel glanced at the archive percentage.
Ninety-four.
“Eleanor Bennett founded the first version of the network with Richard Ashford.”
Lorraine’s face drained of color.
Margaret whispered, “No.”
Daniel spoke quickly.
“Richard provided the companies. Eleanor created the political relationships. Lorraine believed she inherited the network after Richard died, but Eleanor continued directing it from abroad.”
Thomas’s image became unstable.
“Daniel is mixing truth with lies.”
“Then tell Emily where your mother is.”
Thomas said nothing.
Emily approached the screen.
“Dad?”
The transfer reached ninety-six percent.
“Where is Grandmother Eleanor?”
Thomas looked away.
Margaret stared at him.
“You found her.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After I escaped the clinic.”
“And you never came home.”
“I could not.”
“Because of her?”
Thomas’s face filled with anguish.
“Because Eleanor told me Emily was not my daughter.”
The transfer reached ninety-eight percent.
Emily stopped breathing.
Margaret whispered, “Thomas, don’t.”
Lorraine lowered the gun.
Victor turned toward Emily as if seeing her for the first time.
Thomas leaned closer to the camera.
“I did not believe her. Not completely. But then she showed me the Prague records.”
“What records?” Emily asked.
Margaret stepped in front of the screen.
“This is not the time.”
Emily shoved past her.
“What records?”
The transfer reached ninety-nine percent.
Thomas answered.
“The record of the child Margaret brought out of Prague.”
The transfer completed.
All screens went black.
A single line of white text appeared.
ARCHIVE DELIVERED.
May you like
Then another line followed.
RECIPIENT IDENTITY CONFIRMED: EMILY ASHFORD.
