Chapter 11 - The Man Who Refused to Die
The man climbed the final steps slowly.
Agent Ruiz kept himself between us, one hand raised in warning. Claire stood beside me, no longer holding my hand. Her face had lost every trace of color.
The stranger entered the weak light from the cabin.
He was thinner than the man in the old photographs. His dark hair had turned almost completely gray, and one side of his face carried the marks of years that had not been kind to him.
But his eyes were unmistakable.
They were Claire’s eyes.
They were also mine.
“Anthony Mercer?” Agent Ruiz asked.
The man looked at him only briefly.
Then his attention returned to Claire.
“Put down the compass.”
Claire tightened her fingers around it.
“It belonged to my mother.”
“No,” Anthony said. “It belonged to Patricia.”
Claire shook her head.
“My mother hid it before the fire.”
“Because Patricia told her to.”
The accusation struck Claire harder than a physical blow.
I stepped forward.
“You said I shouldn’t trust her. Why?”
Anthony’s gaze moved toward my stomach before returning to my face.
“Because Caroline brought you here.”
“She came with me.”
“She made certain you found the key. She gave you the clue. She placed the compass in your hand.”
“I didn’t know what it opened,” Claire said.
Anthony held out his palm.
“Then give it to me.”
She hesitated.
That hesitation changed the room.
Agent Ruiz noticed it too.
“Ms. Mercer,” he said quietly. “Place the compass on the floor.”
Claire looked at me.
I wanted to defend her. I wanted to believe the woman who had held my hand through seven years of friendship and six months of lies.
But I remembered her own warning.
You shouldn’t trust me.
Claire placed the compass on the first stone step.
Anthony knelt and pressed the edge of its brass casing. A narrow panel opened beneath the needle.
Inside, a red light pulsed.
Agent Ruiz swore.
“A transmitter.”
Claire stared at it.
“No.”
Anthony crushed the device beneath his shoe.
“You have been carrying Patricia’s signal for twenty-two years.”
“That isn’t possible.”
“She gave that compass to your mother after the fire. She said it would help me find you.”
Claire’s voice shook.
“Did it?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you come?”
Anthony looked toward the darkness beneath the staircase.
“Because Patricia found me first.”
A mechanical sound echoed behind us.
The second underground door continued opening.
White lights flickered to life one after another, revealing a corridor extending deep beneath the mountain.
At its end stood a steel barrier marked with two circular locks.
One was shaped like the silver key from Box 317.
The other matched the base of Claire’s compass.
Anthony stared at the barrier.
“She could never open it without both of you.”
A speaker hidden inside the cabin crackled.
Static filled the room.
Then Patricia Vale’s voice emerged.
“Anthony was right about one thing,” she said.
Claire moved closer to me.
Patricia continued.
“I needed both daughters.”
May you like
The cabin door slammed shut behind us.
“And now,” Patricia said, “you have brought me exactly what I need.”
