Chapter 9 - THE INVESTIGATOR WHO NEVER EXISTED
Sophia kept the phone hidden beneath her coat.
The man calling himself Adrian Cole stepped closer.
Miriam looked between them.
“Did you catch the shooter?”
“He got away.”
Sophia studied his face.
His breathing was steady.
Too steady for a man who had chased an armed attacker through a cemetery.
There was no mud on his shoes.
No rain on his shoulders.
He had not pursued anyone.
He had simply disappeared long enough to let someone fire at them.
“Are you injured?” Sophia asked.
He looked at the blood on his hand.
“Just a scrape.”
“Let me see.”
“I’m fine.”
Sophia rose slowly.
Outside, several officers moved between the graves.
Were they real officers?
She no longer knew.
The supposed investigator held out his hand.
“You should give me the letters.”
Miriam closed the box.
“They’re privileged evidence held by my client.”
His expression remained polite.
“They relate to an active federal investigation.”
“Show me your credentials,” Sophia said.
He looked at her.
“You’ve seen them.”
“Show me again.”
A long pause.
Then he reached inside his jacket.
Sophia tensed.
He removed a leather badge wallet and opened it.
The photograph matched.
The seal looked convincing.
But Sophia remembered the caller’s warning.
An impostor.
The man closed the wallet.
“Satisfied?”
“No.”
His smile thinned.
Sophia continued.
“What is your federal identification number?”
“You expect me to recite it?”
“I expect you to know it.”
Miriam stepped beside Sophia.
The man glanced toward the cemetery entrance.
A black SUV approached.
Its windows were dark.
He looked back at Sophia.
“You’re exhausted. Grief affects judgment.”
Ethan had used the same tactic.
Question her stability.
Frame her resistance as illness.
Sophia gripped the metal box.
“Who sent the hospital photographs?”
“We’re still investigating.”
“Who authorized you to enter the hospital room?”
“The bureau.”
“Which field office?”
His eyes changed.
Only slightly.
But Sophia saw the moment the mask fell.
He reached for the box.
Sophia stepped back.
Miriam shouted.
Two cemetery workers suddenly drew weapons.
The nearby officers turned toward the sound.
Chaos erupted.
Sophia ran between the graves.
Miriam followed.
A bullet struck a headstone beside them, spraying chips of marble.
They reached Evelyn’s empty grave.
Sophia jumped into the excavation pit.
Miriam landed beside her.
The casket ropes hung down one wall.
Sophia used them to pull open a narrow maintenance panel leading beneath the cedar’s irrigation system.
She had seen workers access it during the exhumation.
They crawled into darkness.
Above them, footsteps crossed the ground.
Miriam whispered, “Who was on the phone?”
“My mother.”
Miriam stopped.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“And she said Cole is fake?”
“Yes.”
“Then who is the real Cole?”
“I don’t know.”
They crawled through mud until the tunnel opened near a drainage ditch beyond the cemetery wall.
A vehicle waited on the service road.
An elderly woman sat behind the wheel.
Gray hair.
Dark glasses.
A scar along her jaw.
Sophia knew her before the glasses came off.
“Mom.”
Evelyn Hale stared at her daughter.
For four years, Sophia had spoken to a gravestone.
Now her mother was ten feet away.
Alive.
Neither moved.
Then Sophia slapped her.
The sound was quieter than the slap she had given Ethan, but it carried years of grief.
Evelyn accepted it.
Sophia struck her again.
Then she collapsed into her mother’s arms.
“You let me bury you.”
“I know.”
“You let me think everyone was dead.”
“I know.”
“My child. You. You all left me with him.”
Evelyn held her tightly.
“I thought distance would protect you.”
“It protected the people hurting me.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“You’re right.”
Gunfire sounded near the cemetery gates.
Evelyn opened the rear door.
“Get in.”
Miriam climbed inside.
Sophia hesitated.
“Who is the fake investigator?”
“His name is Adrian Vale.”
“Vale?”
“Dr. Aaron Vale’s younger brother.”
Sophia got into the passenger seat.
Evelyn accelerated down the service road.
“Why did he pose as a federal agent?”
“He believes Nightingale killed his family. He has spent years collecting evidence.”
“Then why attack us?”
“He doesn’t want justice. He wants control.”
“And the real investigator?”
“Special Agent Marcus Dean. He has been trying to penetrate Nightingale for eighteen months.”
“Why did he call me?”
“I gave him your number.”
“Where is Lily?”
Evelyn’s grip tightened on the steering wheel.
“She was raised by a couple named Hannah and Samuel Ward.”
“Where are they?”
“Samuel was killed six months ago. Hannah disappeared with Lily last week.”
“Was Lily kidnapped before or after the hospital video?”
Evelyn looked at her.
“That’s the problem.”
“What?”
“Hannah was not a victim.”
The car entered an underground parking structure.
Evelyn stopped near a locked service elevator.
“She was Nightingale’s first successful surrogate.”
Sophia felt the air leave her lungs.
“Hannah gave birth to Lily?”
“Yes.”
“Then why does the birth certificate say seven years ago?”
“Because that is when Lily was born.”
“I was pregnant seven years ago.”
Evelyn looked at her with unbearable sadness.
“You were never pregnant with Lily.”
Sophia stared at her.
“The scans. The heartbeat. The surgery.”
“Manipulated.”
“Why?”
“Because Ethan needed you to believe an embryo had been implanted.”
Sophia’s thoughts shattered against one another.
If Lily had been carried by Hannah, then Sophia’s pregnancy had been fabricated.
Her miscarriage.
Her medical records.
Her grief.
All engineered.
Evelyn pressed the elevator button.
“The child in the red coat is genetically yours.”
The doors opened.
“But she is not the baby you thought you lost.”
Inside the elevator stood Special Agent Marcus Dean.
He held up his badge.
Unlike the fake Cole, he did not smile.
“We found Ethan,” he said.
Sophia stepped inside.
“Where?”
Dean looked at Evelyn.
“He is at Hannah Ward’s house.”
“Is Lily there?”
“We believe so.”
“Then why are we standing here?”
“Because Ethan isn’t the one holding her.”
The elevator descended.
May you like
Dean continued.
“Hannah invited him.”
