Chapter 5 - THE EDITOR WHO ERASED THE TRUTH
Detective Reeves moved in front of Laura.
Owen smiled from the walkway.
“Still playing the honorable detective, Simon?”
“You need to put the weapon down.”
“You know that is not going to happen.”
Laura held the recorder tightly.
“You knew Mark was investigating the Registry.”
“I assigned him the story.”
“You said he had become paranoid.”
“He had.”
“Because someone was planning his death?”
Owen descended the metal stairs slowly.
“Mark was not supposed to die.”
Laura studied his face.
The answer sounded genuine.
“Then whose body was in his car?”
“I don’t know.”
Reeves gave a humorless laugh.
“You expect us to believe that?”
“I expected Mark to leave the country. I arranged a passport, transportation, and a safe identity. Then he changed the plan without telling me.”
Laura remembered the train ticket under the name Daniel Reed.
“You helped people disappear.”
“I helped witnesses survive.”
“You were in the photograph with Celia Ward and a dead man.”
“Daniel Reed created the Echo Registry.”
The name seemed to darken the room.
Owen continued down the stairs.
“He built it after exposing a network that murdered witnesses before trials. His original purpose was to give threatened people new identities. But systems change when powerful men realize what they can buy.”
“And Celia?”
“She manages the medical side.”
“She identified Mark’s body.”
“Yes.”
Laura lifted the recorder.
“What does Martin Cross have to do with this?”
Owen’s gaze fixed on it.
“Everything.”
The warehouse doors opened behind them.
Two men entered.
They were the same men who had searched Laura’s motel room.
Owen immediately raised his weapon, but one of them fired first.
The shot struck the railing beside him.
Reeves pulled Laura behind the office wall.
Owen returned fire toward the ceiling, forcing the men to take cover. He then ran toward a side corridor.
“Follow him,” Reeves ordered.
Laura and Reeves moved through a maze of storage chambers.
Owen disappeared through a loading door and reached a motorcycle parked behind the building.
Before leaving, he looked back at Laura.
“Do not let Celia hear that recording.”
“Why?”
“Because Martin Cross was her husband.”
Owen accelerated into the darkness.
The two armed men were approaching through the warehouse.
Reeves led Laura through a drainage tunnel that opened beside the river. They crossed a narrow service bridge and reached his unmarked car.
Only after they were several miles away did Laura play the recorder again.
Martin Cross’s voice trembled.
“Andrew Vale arranged his own kidnapping. He needed access to company insurance reserves without alerting his partners. He used voice synthesis to make the ransom call sound like me.”
Laura listened in disbelief.
Seven years earlier, voice cloning technology had been primitive. She had believed the recording was authentic because it contained natural breathing, emotional instability, and vocal patterns matching Cross.
Someone had built a system years ahead of anything publicly known.
Martin continued.
“Vale promised I would be released after the investigation ended. Instead, they gave me a new identity and declared me dead inside federal custody.”
The recording paused.
A second voice entered.
It belonged to Andrew Vale.
“You should have accepted the life we gave you.”
Martin answered, “My wife deserves to know I’m alive.”
Andrew laughed.
“Celia already identified your body.”
Laura stopped the recording.
Reeves glanced at her.
“Celia did the same thing to her own husband that she did to Mark.”
Laura looked at the dark road ahead.
“No. Mark warned me that familiar voices could be false.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Maybe the man on this recording was not Andrew Vale.”
Her disposable phone rang.
This time, the screen displayed a live video.
Mark appeared in a dark room.
May you like
He looked directly into the camera.
Then someone behind him placed a hand on his shoulder.
