Chapter 7 - The Father in the Photograph
In the van, Marcus finally told Megan that Vale had visited the Northstar command center before dawn and personally ordered every failed beacon collected. Two disappeared before investigators arrived. Marcus stole the third from an evidence bag and hid it inside his locker, believing it could prove sabotage. By morning the locker had been opened and the device replaced. Only Cross had known where he put it. That detail had created the first fracture in his trust, though he had spent a year refusing to name it.
Marcus reacted before Megan understood the sound.
He grabbed a dining chair and drove it through the nearest window. Cold rain burst inward with shards of glass. An alarm screamed through the apartment.
“Get Clara to the window,” he ordered.
Megan unfastened the carrier with clumsy fingers. The air already smelled metallic and sweet.
Marcus wrapped his jacket around his hand and tore the jagged glass from the lower frame. Six floors below, Cross appeared in the alley and looked up.
Marcus shouted, “Gas trap. Send fire rescue.”
The apartment lights died.
Megan held Clara against her chest. “There’s no fire escape on this side.”
“There is a maintenance ledge.”
“That is not a ledge. That is decoration.”
“It has to hold an air-conditioning unit.”
“I am not an air-conditioning unit.”
He looked at Clara. “You are carrying something more important.”
The gas hiss intensified.
Marcus climbed through first, gripping the stone molding with both hands. Rain soaked his shirt instantly. He turned and reached for Clara.
Megan hesitated.
“Trust me,” he said.
The word carried everything he had not earned.
She placed Clara in his arms anyway.
Marcus held the baby against his chest with one hand and anchored himself with the other. Megan climbed through, shoes slipping on the wet stone. For one terrible second, her foot found nothing.
Marcus caught her wrist.
Below, sirens approached.
They moved sideways along the building, inch by inch, toward a narrow fire escape serving the next apartment. Clara did not cry. She stared at Marcus with wide eyes and clutched his collar.
Megan tried not to look down.
“You suspected Vale was her father,” she said through clenched teeth.
“This is not the moment.”
“It is exactly the moment because I may fall to my death.”
“Elena and Vale had a relationship before she contacted me.”
“You knew?”
“I knew they were close. She never confirmed paternity.”
“And you decided not to tell me.”
“I had no proof.”
“You had enough to go pale.”
Marcus reached the fire escape and handed Clara across the railing to Cross, who had climbed from below with a firefighter.
Megan followed, legs shaking.
Once they reached the alley, she slapped Marcus.
The sound cracked through the rain.
Cross dismissed the firefighter with a look.
Marcus touched his cheek. “I deserved that.”
“Yes.”
“I was trying to protect Clara.”
“That sentence has been used by every person who kept me ignorant.”
Cross held out the recovered tablet, sealed in an evidence bag. “Argue in the vehicle. The building evacuation will bring cameras.”
They entered a black van parked beneath an overpass. Clara sat wrapped in a silver emergency blanket, still holding Marcus’s shirt cuff.
Megan finished reading Elena’s letter.
Vale had approached Elena after she discovered false invoices. He claimed he was investigating Meridian from inside. He earned her trust, then her affection. When she became pregnant, he promised to leave his wife. Later Elena found payments showing Vale himself approved the counterfeit equipment.
She tried to disappear.
Vale threatened to take Clara.
The final paragraph was written in a different ink.
Marcus is not perfect, but he came back when everyone else ran. If he tells you to run, ask him where. If he tells you to trust him, ask what it costs.
Megan looked at Marcus.
“What does trusting you cost?”
He answered immediately. “My career. Possibly my life. Your chance at a normal future.”
“Honest, at least.”
Cross inserted the tablet into an isolated terminal. Files began populating the screen: invoices, voice recordings, photographs, Coast Guard route logs.
One folder was labeled HARBORLIGHT.
It required two keys.
The sheep contained one.
The second, according to Elena’s note, was embedded in a rescue medal Marcus received after Northstar.
Marcus stared at the instruction.
“The medal is in Coast Guard headquarters.”
Cross nodded. “In Vale’s office display case.”
Megan laughed in disbelief. “My sister hid one key with a baby and the other beside the man she accused?”
“She understood arrogance,” Marcus said. “Vale would keep trophies close.”
Cross opened a news feed.
Olivia stood outside the airport before a wall of cameras.
She announced that Megan and Clara had been kidnapped by a fugitive Coast Guard officer. She displayed the viral photograph and begged the public to help.
Then she revealed a new image.
It showed Marcus climbing from Apartment 6C with Clara in his arms.
The angle came from inside the opposite building.
Someone had been waiting.
A reporter asked Olivia whether Clara was Admiral Vale’s child.
Olivia paused.
Then she said, “That is a cruel lie invented by Commander Reed.”
Cross turned off the screen.
Marcus looked at the tablet files. “She wants the public angry enough to trap us.”
Megan folded Elena’s letter. “Then we stop running.”
Cross studied her. “What are you proposing?”
May you like
Megan looked toward the city, where headquarters rose beside the harbor.
“We go get the medal.”
