Chapter 15 - The Name Inside Naomi’s Folder
The surveillance room became silent.
Naomi ordered the investigators to restore power, trace the broadcast, and search every part of the property again.
Olivia did not move.
She looked at Naomi.
“Who sent the first package?”
“We don’t know.”
“The message said to ask you.”
“It may be designed to create distrust.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Naomi holstered her weapon.
“The package had no return information.”
“Fingerprints?”
“None.”
“Delivery footage?”
“A courier left it at the division.”
“Which courier?”
“A subcontractor. He received the package from a locker.”
Olivia watched her carefully.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it did not help identify the source.”
“Did the package mention Gabriel?”
Naomi hesitated.
That was enough.
“What did it say?”
“Olivia.”
“What did it say?”
Naomi looked toward the investigators working around them.
Then she opened her leather folder.
It was the same folder she had placed on the restaurant table before Connor and Brenda’s world collapsed.
From an interior pocket, she removed a small white card.
The card contained a single handwritten sentence.
Protect Olivia until she remembers the beach.
Olivia read it twice.
“I didn’t remember the beach.”
“No.”
“Did you know about the photograph?”
“No.”
“Did my father ever mention Gabriel?”
“Not in any record we found.”
“Then whoever sent this knew about my childhood.”
“Yes.”
“And knew I had forgotten him.”
“Yes.”
Olivia looked at the black monitor.
“What else are you hiding?”
Naomi’s expression hardened.
“I have withheld information that could not be verified.”
“Show me.”
“This is not the place.”
“It is exactly the place.”
Naomi closed the folder.
Before she could respond, an investigator entered carrying a sealed evidence bag.
“We found this in the upstairs fireplace,” he said. “It looks recent.”
Inside the bag was a partially burned passport.
Most of the cover and several pages had been destroyed. The photograph remained visible.
A man in his early forties with dark hair and familiar eyes.
Olivia felt a strange pull of recognition.
The name was still readable.
Gabriel Daniel Cross.
The birth date placed him two years before Olivia.
Her brother.
Alive.
The final intact stamp showed that Gabriel had entered the country three weeks earlier.
Naomi examined the passport.
“He wanted us to find this.”
“Why?”
“To establish that he exists.”
Olivia looked at the boxes surrounding them.
“What does he want from me?”
Nobody answered.
The investigator holding the evidence bag glanced toward the open corridor.
“Agent Reyes, there’s one more thing.”
“What?”
“We found a vehicle tunnel behind the northern wall. Recent tire tracks.”
“So he escaped before we secured the property.”
“Possibly.”
“Where does the tunnel lead?”
“To a road near the cliffs.”
Olivia studied the photograph in the passport.
There was something unsettling about Gabriel’s expression.
He was not smiling.
But he did not look afraid.
He looked like someone who had been waiting a very long time to be recognized.
Naomi’s phone rang.
She checked the screen.
Her face changed.
“Who is it?” Olivia asked.
Naomi did not answer.
She walked several steps away and accepted the call.
“Reyes.”
Silence.
Then Naomi looked directly at Olivia.
“No,” she said into the phone. “She’s here.”
Another silence.
Naomi’s hand tightened around the device.
“That’s impossible.”
The call ended.
“What happened?” Olivia asked.
Naomi remained still.
“Connor Ward was attacked during transport.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
“Who attacked him?”
“The transport vehicle never stopped. The internal camera failed for forty-seven seconds.”
“What did Connor say?”
“He was unconscious when they found him.”
Olivia felt cold.
“Then why did someone call you?”
Naomi looked at the burned passport.
“Connor regained consciousness less than a minute ago.”
“And?”
“He asked the officer to deliver a message to you.”
Olivia waited.
Naomi’s voice lowered.
“He said Gabriel is not your brother.”
The emergency lights flickered.
Somewhere inside the archive, a mechanical lock released.
A door at the end of the corridor slowly opened.
Beyond it stood a small, brightly lit room.
In the center was a table.
On the table lay a red child’s coat identical to the one Olivia wore in the beach photograph.
Beside it rested a tape recorder.
The machine clicked on by itself.
A woman’s voice began to play.
Elaine Bennett’s voice.
“Olivia, if you have reached this room, then Gabriel has already found you.”
Olivia moved toward the doorway.
Naomi grabbed her arm.
“Wait.”
Elaine’s recording continued.
“You will be told he is your brother. You will be told Victor took him from us. Both statements contain enough truth to make the lie believable.”
Olivia’s heart hammered.
The tape crackled.
“The child in the photograph was named Gabriel.”
A long pause followed.
“But Gabriel Cross died on the beach in 1993.”
Olivia stared at the red coat.
Her mother’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“The man using his name is the reason you cannot remember what happened.”
The lights went out.
In the darkness, Olivia’s phone vibrated inside her coat.
A new message appeared from an unknown number.
It contained a photograph taken only seconds earlier.
Olivia and Naomi stood in the archive doorway, seen from behind.
Whoever had taken it was still inside the house.
Beneath the image were seven words.
You remembered me once. You will again.
May you like
Then footsteps sounded in the corridor behind them.
And a man began to laugh.
