Chapter 10 - THE FRIEND WHO WATCHED
The tunnel ended near the river.
Thomas led them through knee-deep water beneath the trees while Hale stayed behind to delay Adrian’s team.
Emma carried Grace.
Daniel held Connor’s hand.
Sabrina supported Margaret, whose leg had been cut by broken glass.
They reached an abandoned mill on the far side of the island.
Thomas locked the doors.
Emma rounded on Margaret.
“Why does Lila want my children?”
Margaret pressed a cloth against her wound.
“Ask Thomas.”
Emma turned.
Her father looked exhausted.
“The genetic marker may have passed to Connor or Grace.”
Daniel stepped in front of the children.
“No one is touching them.”
Thomas opened the metal case.
“The archive requires a living sample. Adrian cannot risk losing Daniel until he knows whether the children inherited the marker.”
Emma thought of every time Lila had treated Grace at the hospital.
Blood tests.
Routine examinations.
A vaccination appointment Daniel had missed.
“Lila tested them.”
Thomas nodded.
“She may have.”
Emma called Lila.
To her surprise, she answered.
“Where are you?” Emma demanded.
“Safe.”
“You were at the farmhouse.”
“I tried to stop Adrian from using the drone.”
“You told him where we were.”
“I followed the tracker in Daniel’s ring.”
Emma looked at the ring in her hand.
She threw it into the river.
“Why are you helping him?”
“Because he saved my daughter.”
Emma remembered Lila’s daughter, Sophie, who had suffered severe brain damage after a drowning accident. Two years later, Sophie appeared to recover almost completely.
“Adrian treated her,” Emma said.
“Yes.”
“At what cost?”
Lila’s voice shook.
“She remembers me. She walks. She goes to school. Do you understand what that means?”
“It means he made you loyal.”
“It means his work can save millions.”
“His work destroys people.”
“Every treatment has risks.”
“Daniel is not a risk. He is a person.”
“So were the patients you lost in surgery.”
Emma flinched.
Lila continued.
“You make life-and-death decisions every day. Adrian does the same on a larger scale.”
“He kidnapped my husband.”
“He protected him after Margaret’s ambush.”
Margaret shouted from across the mill.
“She is lying!”
Lila heard.
“Ask your mother who hired Ethan to stop Daniel.”
Emma looked at Margaret.
“Did you?”
Margaret stared at the floor.
Sabrina whispered, “Mom?”
“I hired Ethan to take the documents,” Margaret admitted. “Not to hurt Daniel.”
“Ethan worked for Adrian.”
“I did not know.”
“You never know,” Emma said. “That is always your answer.”
Lila interrupted.
“Emma, the archive is beneath the Reeves estate. Daniel knows how to open it. Adrian wants the research, but Thomas wants to destroy it.”
Thomas stepped closer to the phone.
“Because no one should possess it.”
“You don’t get to decide that,” Lila said.
“I created it.”
“And abandoned everyone who could benefit from it.”
Thomas ended the call.
Emma stared at him.
“Is she right?”
“Partly.”
“What is beneath my house?”
“The original Hawthorne laboratory.”
Emma thought of the basement wine cellar Daniel never used. One wall had always been sealed by stone.
“Daniel bought that house before we married.”
“He was guided toward it.”
“By Adrian?”
“By me.”
Emma felt another betrayal settle into place.
“You arranged our home.”
“I needed someone from the Reeves line to control the property.”
“Did you arrange our marriage too?”
“No.”
She searched his face.
He looked away.
Her stomach turned.
“You knew Daniel before I met him.”
“I knew who he was.”
“Did you send him to the hospital where I worked?”
Thomas said nothing.
Emma laughed once, without humor.
“My whole life is someone else’s plan.”
Daniel stepped toward her.
“Not all of it.”
“You don’t remember it.”
“I remember enough.”
He pointed toward the children.
“No one planned them.”
Grace moved close to Emma.
Connor held the recorder like a shield.
Outside, an engine approached from the river.
A small boat stopped beside the mill.
Hale entered through the lower door.
Blood covered his sleeve.
“We have ten minutes.”
Thomas unfolded an old map of Emma’s house.
“The archive chamber is here.”
He pointed beneath the cellar.
“To open it, Daniel must provide blood verification. Emma must use the authorization phrase.”
“What phrase?”
“Daniel hid it inside a family memory Adrian could not easily identify.”
Connor lifted the recorder.
“Evidence remembers.”
Thomas looked at him.
“That may be part of it.”
Hale checked the window.
“Adrian will search the river.”
Emma studied the map.
“Then we go home.”
Sabrina shook her head.
“That is exactly where he expects us.”
“Yes,” Emma said. “But he expects us to run.”
She looked at each person in the mill.
“We are done running.”
Margaret tried to stand.
“What are you planning?”
Emma folded the map.
“A birthday party.”
Grace stared at her.
“My party?”
Emma knelt beside her.
“Sabrina invited witnesses from the hospital, the school, and the court. Adrian expects us to cancel. We won’t.”
“You want to bring everyone into danger?” Margaret asked.
“I want Adrian to believe he is still controlling the plan.”
Daniel understood first.
“The archive opens during the party.”
“While his attention is on Grace.”
Sabrina’s face hardened.
“You want me to continue pretending I’m helping him.”
Emma looked at her severed family.
“I want everyone to play the role Adrian wrote for them.”
“And then?” Hale asked.
May you like
Emma’s eyes moved toward the recorder in Connor’s hands.
“Then we change the ending.”
