Chapter 21 - The Locket
The intercom carried only a recording.
Rachel Hayes had prepared it years earlier.
“Nora, if you found the ledger, then Thomas failed to keep you away from the Mercer daughters.”
Nora held the locket so tightly that its edge pressed into her palm.
Rachel continued.
“Your father stole one daughter. Evelyn stole the other. I kept the names.”
Eva looked at Mia.
Neither spoke.
“The archive will transfer when the first daughter turns twenty-six. Jonathan will claim the title through blood. Evelyn will claim it through sacrifice. Both will ask you to choose a side.”
The transparent strip from the locket contained hundreds of names and dates. Reed photographed it while Nora listened.
“You are not required to choose either of them,” Rachel said. “Bring both daughters to the old observatory. Then I will return Thomas to you.”
The recording ended.
Jonathan shook his head.
“It’s a trap.”
Nora turned on him.
“You used those words every time Rachel asked me to distrust my father.”
“Because she was controlling you.”
“And you were not?”
Reed ordered surveillance teams around the observatory. Mia refused to allow Nora to go alone.
“No more private bargains,” Mia said. “That is how Kyle controlled all of us.”
At midnight, they entered the observatory together.
No one waited inside.
A projector activated above the central platform.
Rachel appeared on the curved wall.
She was older than the woman in Nora’s childhood photographs, but unmistakably the same person.
Nora stepped forward.
“Where is my father?”
A second video window opened.
Thomas sat inside a small room. He was tired but conscious.
“He has been difficult,” Rachel said. “That is one of the qualities I once admired.”
“What do you want?”
“The Mercer daughters.”
Mia looked up.
“We are here.”
“No. One of you is here.”
Mia turned.
Eva had been walking behind them moments earlier.
Now the doorway stood empty.
Reed checked the surveillance feed.
Eva had left the vehicle willingly before the team entered the observatory. She had walked toward a waiting car and climbed inside.
Rachel smiled from the screen.
“Eva understands that sisters are not always allies.”
The image changed.
Eva sat beside Kyle in the back seat of the car.
Kyle leaned toward the camera.
“Eight days, Mia. After that, one of you becomes an owner.”
May you like
He smiled.
“And the other becomes evidence.”
