Chapter 7 - Lucas)
Daniel could not speak for nearly a minute.
Laura stood by the fence while the abandoned medical building burned behind her.
Megan watched Daniel look at the photograph again and again.
"You raised my nephew."
"Yes."
"Since when?"
"Since he was four."
"You told me you didn't know where he was."
"I needed to know how much you already knew before I told you."
"Where is he now?"
"I don't know."
Daniel stepped closer.
"You don't know where your own son is?"
Laura flinched.
"He isn't my son."
"You raised him."
"I protected him."
"Where is he?"
"He left six months ago."
"Why?"
"He found out who he was."
Daniel laughed in disbelief.
"You kept that from him too?"
"I kept him alive."
Megan understood Laura's fear.
Daniel did not.
Not yet.
Laura continued.
"Anna brought him to me."
Daniel stopped.
"Anna found Lucas?"
"Yes."
"When she escaped the facility, she spent months searching. She discovered that your parents had placed Lucas in a private children's residence under another name. Anna took him."
"Why didn't she bring him to me?"
"Because your father was watching you."
Daniel looked away.
"She believed contact with you would lead them to Lucas."
"What happened to her?"
"She asked me to take him for two weeks."
"And?"
"She never came back."
Megan touched Sophie's empty car seat through the open door.
Suddenly every mile between them and the hotel felt dangerous.
"We need to get back."
Daniel nodded.
He turned to Laura.
"Come with us."
"No."
"I need to speak to Lucas."
"So do I."
"Then help me."
Laura stared at him.
"Lucas doesn't want anything to do with the Bennett family."
"He doesn't know me."
"He knows enough."
"What did you tell him?"
"The truth I had."
"Which was?"
"That Richard Bennett took him from his mother. That Evelyn helped hide Anna. That you stayed in the house and eventually joined the company."
Daniel recoiled.
"I was nineteen."
"I know."
"Does Lucas?"
"Intellectually, yes. Emotionally, I don't know."
Daniel looked toward the burning building.
"Why did he leave?"
"He found a newspaper article about you."
"What article?"
"Your promotion to chief operating officer."
Daniel said nothing.
"He decided if he wanted answers, he would find them himself."
"You let him?"
"Lucas is sixteen."
Megan frowned.
"Sixteen?"
Daniel calculated.
"That makes sense."
"He is stubborn. Brilliant. Angry. Very much Anna's son."
Daniel almost smiled.
Then Laura's phone vibrated.
She read the screen.
Her expression changed.
"What?"
Laura looked at Megan.
"Your hotel."
Megan's stomach dropped.
"What about it?"
Laura turned the phone toward them.
A local emergency alert.
Police activity at the hotel address.
Megan was already running to the car.
Daniel drove faster than Megan had ever seen him drive.
Rachel called before they arrived.
"I'm okay."
"Sophie?"
"She's with me. She's okay."
"What happened?"
"Someone tried to open the room door."
Megan closed her eyes.
"Who?"
"I don't know. A man in a maintenance uniform. I called the front desk because he didn't have a badge. They said nobody had been sent up."
"Where are you now?"
"Lobby. Police are here."
"We're five minutes away."
When they entered, Sophie ran unsteadily toward Megan.
"Mama."
Megan dropped to her knees.
Rachel looked pale.
"He kept saying there was a water leak."
Daniel spoke with police.
Security footage showed the man wearing a cap.
His face was partly hidden.
He left through a side stairwell.
The license plate on his vehicle belonged to a car stolen earlier that day.
Police took statements.
At two in the morning they moved to another hotel under Rachel's name.
Laura disappeared again.
Daniel sat on the edge of the bed with Lucas's photograph.
Megan held Sophie.
"We can't stay here," she said.
"I know."
"We can't go back."
"I know."
"We need an attorney."
"Yes."
"And police outside the family connection."
Daniel nodded.
Megan studied him.
"What aren't you saying?"
He handed her the photograph.
She looked closer.
Lucas was walking through a parking lot beside a brick building.
A sign appeared behind him.
BENNETT INDUSTRIES.
Megan looked at Daniel.
"This was taken at your company?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
Daniel zoomed in on the digital copy Laura had texted before disappearing.
Lucas was carrying an employee access badge.
Daniel stared at it.
"He's been inside."
"When?"
"The date on the photograph is last Tuesday."
"Could someone have hired him?"
"He's sixteen."
"What would he be doing there?"
Daniel's eyes moved to the hotel window.
"I think he came looking for something."
At seven the next morning, Daniel's assistant called.
Her voice sounded panicked.
"Daniel, I'm sorry to bother you."
"What happened?"
"Your office was broken into."
Megan sat upright.
Daniel switched to speaker.
"Was anything taken?"
"We can't tell."
"Who got in?"
"Security hasn't identified him."
Daniel looked at Megan.
"Was it a teenage boy?"
May you like
The assistant went silent.
"How did you know?"
