Chapter 14 - The Detective in the Photograph
Nathan Cole denied it.
Until Clara showed him the image.
The flash drive contained hundreds of scanned files.
Photographs.
Financial records.
Audio recordings.
And a picture from East Harbor taken five years earlier.
Arthur Vance stood near the excavation pit.
Peter Hale’s former attorney stood beside him.
And twenty yards behind them, wearing a police uniform, was a younger Nathan Cole.
Cole stared at the photograph inside a secure hospital conference room.
Julian sat beside Clara.
Serena was under guard after surgery.
Arthur and Teresa had been separated for questioning.
“You were there,” Clara said.
“Yes.”
“You lied.”
“Yes.”
Julian stood despite his weakness.
“You knew about the bodies?”
“Yes.”
“Did you help remove them?”
“No.”
“Why should we believe anything you say?”
Cole removed his badge.
Placed it on the table.
Then his service weapon.
Slowly.
“I was a patrol officer assigned to perimeter control.”
Clara watched him.
“Who gave the order?”
“A captain named Warren Pike.”
The same name Arthur had given them.
“Pike was police?”
“Internal investigations.”
“Arthur thought he was federal.”
“That’s what Pike wanted him to think.”
“Where is Pike?”
Cole looked at Serena’s flash drive.
“Supposedly dead.”
Clara almost laughed.
“Everyone connected to this is supposedly dead.”
Cole nodded.
“That’s why I transferred into major crimes.”
Julian stared.
“You’ve been investigating this for five years?”
“Quietly.”
“Why?”
Cole’s face changed.
“My sister disappeared twenty-seven years ago.”
Silence.
“She was nineteen. Pregnant. Living in a shelter connected to Peter Hale’s medical foundation.”
Clara understood.
“You think her child was sold.”
“I know it was.”
“How?”
Cole opened a folder he had carried into the room.
“My sister’s body was one of the six under Parcel 17.”
Julian sat slowly.
Cole continued.
“The remains were removed before official processing, but one technician secretly copied portions of the pathology data.”
“The same technician who generated Mara Bell’s DNA?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“Dead.”
Clara said nothing.
Cole looked exhausted.
“I didn’t tell you because every time I involved someone, they disappeared.”
“Then who sent me the messages?”
“I don’t know.”
Clara studied him.
“Serena believed you were compromised.”
“She should.”
“Why?”
“Because Pike knows I’m investigating.”
Julian looked toward the hallway.
“If Pike is alive.”
“He is.”
Cole pulled out his phone.
He showed them a photograph taken two weeks earlier.
An older man leaving a private aviation terminal.
Warren Pike.
Alive.
Clara felt the pieces lock into place.
“Pike changed Julian’s dose.”
Cole nodded.
“Possibly.”
“Why kill Julian now?”
“To stop the DNA connection.”
Julian frowned.
“What connection?”
Cole looked at him.
“Your biological mother, Mara Bell, wasn’t just another victim.”
He opened another file.
“She was keeping records.”
“Of the children?”
“Of the buyers.”
Clara’s stomach tightened.
Cole slid a scanned page toward them.
Hundreds of names had been partially blacked out.
Politicians.
Judges.
Doctors.
Business executives.
One name remained completely visible.
Arthur Vance.
Julian looked devastated.
“My father bought me.”
Cole shook his head.
“That isn’t the worst part.”
He pointed lower on the page.
A handwritten notation appeared beside Arthur’s name.
Returned child rejected.
Second placement approved.
Julian stared at it.
“What does that mean?”
Nobody answered.
His voice rose.
“What does that mean?”
Clara looked at Cole.
May you like
Cole said quietly:
“It means you may not have been the first child placed with the Vances.”
