Chapter 13 - The Guardian
Daniel wrapped the newborns in warm blankets and placed them beside Olivia.
“Stay here.”
Olivia grabbed his wrist.
“No.”
“Someone is coming.”
“That is why you shouldn’t leave.”
Samuel checked his gun.
“I’ll go.”
Daniel looked at him.
“You have done enough alone.”
Vanessa stepped toward the elevator.
“I know Victor’s habits.”
“You’ve been wrong about him for six years,” Daniel said.
“So have you.”
The elevator indicator moved downward.
Level one.
Level zero.
The doors would open in seconds.
Samuel aimed his weapon.
Daniel stood beside him with a metal medical tray held like a shield.
Vanessa picked up a surgical instrument.
The elevator stopped.
The doors opened.
No one stood inside.
A large silver case rested on the floor.
A phone lay on top.
It began ringing.
Daniel picked it up.
The screen displayed a video call from Victor.
He answered.
Victor sat inside an unfamiliar office.
Behind him stood shelves filled with Bennett family photographs.
Some were decades old.
Others had been taken recently through windows, gates and long-distance lenses.
Photographs of Daniel.
Olivia.
Vanessa.
Samuel.
And a young girl with dark hair.
Daniel stared at her picture.
She appeared to be five or six years old.
“Is that my daughter?”
Victor smiled.
“That depends on which woman you believe.”
“Where is she?”
“Open the silver case.”
Daniel looked at it.
Samuel shook his head.
“It could be explosive.”
Victor laughed.
“I have invested too much in that family to destroy them with a bomb.”
Daniel opened the latches.
Inside were three items.
An old trust ledger.
A child’s red coat.
And a DNA testing kit.
Daniel picked up the coat.
The label showed the size of a six-year-old child.
Olivia watched from the bed.
“Whose coat is that?”
Victor answered through the phone.
“The original beneficiary’s.”
Daniel looked at the photographs behind Victor.
“Claire’s daughter.”
“Possibly.”
“What do you want?”
“Proof.”
“Of what?”
“That the child Claire protected is truly a Bennett.”
Daniel held up the DNA kit.
“You want my sample.”
“Yours and the girl’s.”
“Where is she?”
“With the person Claire trusted most.”
Daniel remembered Claire’s warning.
Do not trust the child’s guardian.
“Who is the guardian?”
Victor’s smile widened.
“You have been standing beside him all day.”
Daniel slowly looked around the room.
Samuel.
Vanessa.
Olivia.
Each person stared at the others.
Victor continued.
“The guardian signed a private agreement six years ago.”
“In exchange for protecting the child, the guardian would gain access to the trust when she turned eighteen.”
Samuel stepped toward the phone.
“You are lying.”
“Am I?”
Victor displayed a document.
At the bottom was Samuel Price’s signature.
Daniel looked at him.
Samuel shook his head.
“I signed transfer papers, not guardianship.”
Victor moved the document closer to the camera.
“The language is clear.”
Samuel read it.
His face changed.
“I never saw that page.”
“You signed the final page.”
“You replaced the others.”
“Perhaps.”
Daniel looked at Samuel.
“Do you know where my daughter is?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
Victor laughed.
“Ask him about the monthly payments.”
Daniel’s eyes hardened.
“What payments?”
Samuel looked down.
“An account I was instructed to maintain.”
“For whom?”
“A foster family.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“You paid for her care.”
“I paid an agency.”
“Which agency?”
“It changed names repeatedly.”
Victor spoke through the phone.
“Samuel knew enough to locate her.”
Samuel lifted the gun toward the screen.
“You created a trail designed to incriminate me.”
“Correct.”
Daniel looked at Victor.
“Then Samuel is not the guardian.”
Victor smiled.
“Not anymore.”
The phrase chilled everyone.
Vanessa moved toward the photographs inside the silver case.
She found another image beneath the ledger.
It showed the little girl holding hands with a woman outside a school.
Vanessa stared at the guardian’s face.
“No.”
Daniel took the photograph.
The woman wore sunglasses and a wide hat, but her features were visible.
She looked almost identical to Claire.
Olivia whispered,
“Claire kept her own daughter.”
Daniel stared at Victor.
“You said the guardian was standing beside me.”
“She is.”
Daniel looked toward the dark medical terminal.
Claire was not physically there.
Victor’s smile disappeared.
“You still don’t understand.”
A soft sound came from the room behind them.
One of the newborns began crying.
Then a woman’s voice spoke from the emergency speaker.
“I’m sorry, Daniel.”
The voice sounded like Claire.
But it came from inside the medical suite.
A hidden door beside the cabinets opened.
The woman who stepped through looked exactly like the person from the video call.
She removed the dark wig from her head.
Vanessa dropped the surgical instrument.
Daniel could only stare.
The woman was not Claire.
She was Evelyn Shaw.
The Bennett Trust administrator.
May you like
The fifth person who knew the authorization system.
And in her arms, she held a frightened six-year-old girl.
