Chapter 12 - The Recording Margaret Kept)
Margaret had saved everything.
Videos.
Voice messages.
School performances.
Birthday clips.
Christmas mornings.
Hundreds of family recordings stored on a private cloud account.
Police obtained a warrant.
One file mattered.
Thomas Bennett's funeral.
Caitlyn, age three, sat on Margaret's lap.
A relative behind the camera asked Caitlyn what Grandpa used to sing.
Caitlyn performed the entire Bennett train song.
Clear audio.
Every number.
Every station.
Every code phrase except blue lantern.
Mark watched the video once.
Then closed it.
"So anyone with Margaret's cloud password could get the song."
Moreno nodded.
"Victor had access to her laptop."
Elena asked, "Did Reed?"
Nobody knew.
They contacted Margaret.
This time she answered immediately.
"Victor copied my cloud files months ago."
"Why?"
"He said he needed family records for the trust."
Mark nearly shouted.
"You gave him videos of Caitlyn?"
"I didn't understand."
"That's becoming your favorite sentence."
Margaret went quiet.
Then said, "There was another person."
"Who?"
"Victor never gave me his name."
"Describe him."
"Early forties. Dark hair. Scar near his left ear."
Elena's expression changed.
"Mercer."
Samantha inhaled.
"The men who took me used that name."
Elena nodded.
"Caleb Mercer. Former Northstar operations."
"So Reed had someone inside Victor's circle," Moreno said.
"Probably."
Mark looked toward Caitlyn.
"Then Mercer could have the song."
"But not blue lantern," Elena said.
"What is blue lantern?"
Elena shook her head.
"Thomas never told me."
"Convenient."
"He told me you'd know."
"I don't."
"Maybe not consciously."
Mark became frustrated.
His father loved puzzles.
Mark hated them.
Thomas used to leave birthday gifts behind riddles because he thought discovery made things meaningful.
Mark had always preferred simply opening the present.
Now his father's habit might get people killed.
They searched the cabin.
Thomas's old journals.
Toolboxes.
Photographs.
Nothing.
At midnight Caitlyn fell asleep beside Samantha on the sofa.
Mark watched them.
Samantha woke.
She whispered, "She held my hand in the tunnel."
Mark looked at her.
"When?"
"When they moved me."
She swallowed.
"I didn't deserve it."
"She's seven."
"I know."
"She doesn't think like you."
Samantha flinched.
Mark immediately regretted his tone.
He sat across from her.
"What happened to you doesn't erase what you did."
She nodded.
"But what you did doesn't mean you deserved to be kidnapped."
Samantha stared at him.
"Do you hate me?"
Mark thought before answering.
"I'm angry."
"That's not what I asked."
"No."
Her eyes filled.
"I don't hate you."
She wiped them quickly.
"Mom does."
"No."
"She does."
"Your mother loves herself more than she understands how to love other people."
Samantha looked toward the sleeping Caitlyn.
"Is she going to prison?"
"Probably."
"For how long?"
"I don't know."
Samantha nodded.
Then whispered, "Maybe that's good."
Mark said nothing.
The next morning Elena found blue lantern.
Not in a document.
On the wall.
An old photograph showed Mark and Daniel as children beside Thomas at a campsite.
Behind them hung a blue camping lantern.
On the back Thomas had written:
Mark finally stopped being afraid of the dark.
Mark remembered.
He had been eight.
A thunderstorm knocked out power.
Thomas gave him the lantern.
Mark had asked why it was blue.
His father replied:
Because red means stop.
Blue means keep looking.
Keep looking.
Mark stared at the photograph.
"That's the phrase."
Elena nodded.
"But we still need the archive location."
Caitlyn woke and wandered into the room.
She saw the photograph.
"I know that lantern."
Mark looked down.
"You do?"
"Grandpa had one in his workshop."
Daniel frowned.
"The old workshop was demolished."
"No."
Caitlyn pointed toward the picture.
"Not that one."
"What workshop?"
"The little one under the train."
Everyone went quiet.
Mark crouched.
"What train?"
Caitlyn described a model railway Thomas kept in his basement.
After Thomas died, most of his belongings went into storage.
Including the giant model train table.
Daniel's eyes widened.
"The storage building."
They drove there that afternoon with police.
The model railway sat beneath dusty sheets.
Caitlyn immediately climbed onto a chair and pointed.
"There."
A miniature blue lantern hung beside a model station.
Mark removed it.
Inside was a small rolled paper.
Coordinates.
Elena entered them into a map.
The location was not Bennett Street.
Not Riverpoint.
Not any Bennett property.
It was forty miles away.
An abandoned water treatment facility.
Moreno stared.
"That property belongs to Northstar Federal Systems."
Elena frowned.
"Then Thomas hid the archive inside the enemy's building."
Daniel almost smiled.
"That sounds like Dad."
Before they could leave, Moreno's phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Then looked at Mark.
"Victor Hale is dead."
"What?"
"Transport accident."
Elena's face hardened.
"Accident?"
Moreno shook her head.
"Someone shot him before the crash."
Mark looked at the coordinates.
The last person who could easily identify Vale's operation had just been silenced.
Elena folded Thomas's map.
"We move now."
"Why?"
"Because Victor wasn't killed to keep him from talking."
May you like
She pointed toward the coordinates.
"He was killed because somebody knows we're close."
