Chapter 8 - The Price of Bringing Rachel Home
Nathan turned toward the empty hallway.
“Rachel!”
No answer.
Luke ran toward the rear stairwell.
Nathan grabbed his coat.
“No.”
“She's my friend too.”
“And Whitmore wants us separated.”
Luke looked furious.
Nathan pointed to Emma.
“You stay with her.”
“Why me?”
“Because for once in your life, be her father when it costs you something.”
The words landed.
Luke stopped.
Emma looked frightened.
“Daddy, don't go.”
Nathan crouched.
“I have to bring Rachel back.”
“What if you don't?”
Nathan forced himself not to promise something he could not control.
“I'll do everything I can.”
Emma wrapped both arms around him.
“Come back.”
“I plan to.”
She whispered in his ear.
“You always say plans aren't promises.”
Nathan nearly smiled.
“Then this one is both.”
Nathan left through the east corridor.
Samuel Price emerged from the basement.
Nathan almost shot him.
“Easy.”
“You have three seconds.”
Samuel raised both hands.
“Whitmore's men took Rachel through the service entrance.”
“You helped them.”
“I delayed them.”
Nathan grabbed him.
“You've been delaying things for eight years.”
Samuel did not resist.
“You want to save Rachel or punish me?”
Nathan released him.
“Where?”
“Pier 19.”
Of course.
Everything began there.
Everything intended to end there.
Samuel had a vehicle hidden behind the hospital.
They drove while Nathan called Caleb.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Samuel said, “Caleb's alive.”
“How do you know?”
“I freed him.”
Nathan stared.
“You were at Pier 19.”
“Yes.”
“Working with Whitmore?”
“Pretending to.”
Nathan gave a humorless laugh.
“Apparently pretending is the Holloway family business.”
Samuel accepted the insult.
“You want the truth?”
“I've wanted the truth for eight hours.”
“I've wanted to give it to you for eight years.”
“Then why didn't you?”
“Because Edward made me swear to protect Luke.”
Nathan looked at him.
“My father ordered Elena killed.”
Samuel's face tightened.
“Yes.”
“And you still obeyed him?”
“No.”
Samuel stared through the windshield.
“That's why Edward spent his final years helping us destroy the system he'd created.”
Nathan was silent.
“People don't become good simply because they regret being evil,” Samuel continued. “Edward understood that.”
“Did he?”
“He never asked forgiveness.”
Nathan looked away.
Maybe that was the first respectable thing his father had done.
They reached Pier 19 shortly before sunrise.
Fog covered the river.
Container cranes stood like black skeletons above the docks.
Nathan exited the vehicle alone.
Whitmore waited inside Warehouse C.
Rachel sat tied to a chair.
Vivian stood several feet away with a bruise across her face.
Caleb was nowhere visible.
Whitmore held a pistol.
Ten armed men surrounded him.
Nathan walked inside.
“Let them go.”
Whitmore smiled.
“You always did skip introductions when angry.”
“We've eaten dinner together.”
“Yes.”
Whitmore sounded almost nostalgic.
“Your father made excellent bourbon selections.”
“My father is dead.”
“Eventually.”
Nathan stopped twenty feet away.
“You want the keys.”
“Yes.”
Nathan held up Edward’s watch.
In his other hand was Elena’s metal cylinder.
Whitmore's eyes brightened.
“Finally.”
Rachel shouted, “Don't!”
Whitmore struck her across the face.
Nathan took one step.
Every weapon in the warehouse pointed at him.
Whitmore smiled.
“Control.”
Nathan stopped.
“You were better at that before tonight.”
Nathan looked toward Vivian.
Her hands were tied.
“Why did you hurt Emma?”
Vivian looked confused by the question.
Whitmore laughed.
“Really?”
“I want to hear her answer.”
Vivian swallowed.
“I thought fear would keep her from searching.”
“You could have told me.”
“I was told you were compromised.”
“By Luke?”
“No.”
Vivian looked at Whitmore.
“By him.”
Nathan frowned.
Whitmore's smile faded.
Vivian continued.
“He showed me photographs of Emma leaving school. Sleeping. Playing in the garden.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“He said if I didn't control her, he'd take her.”
“So you abused her first.”
Vivian closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
There was no excuse in her voice.
No attempt to make Nathan forgive her.
“I told myself I was choosing the lesser harm.”
Nathan understood that disease too well.
Choosing pain for someone else and calling it protection.
“I was wrong,” Vivian whispered.
Nathan nodded once.
“You were.”
Whitmore grew impatient.
“Touching. The keys.”
Nathan tossed the watch onto the concrete.
Whitmore’s man retrieved it.
Then Nathan held the metal key.
“Rachel first.”
Whitmore pointed his pistol at her.
“No.”
“Then you don't get this.”
Whitmore smiled.
“I can take it from your body.”
Nathan shook his head.
“Look at it.”
Whitmore did.
Nathan opened his hand.
The cylinder had a red light blinking.
Whitmore’s face changed.
“That's not the key.”
“No.”
Nathan smiled.
“It's a transmitter.”
Outside, floodlights suddenly illuminated the warehouse.
Sirens erupted.
Whitmore spun toward the doors.
Samuel had not been driving Nathan to surrender.
He had been buying time.
Federal vehicles surrounded Pier 19.
Whitmore’s own evidence, copied from Elena's archive, had been sent simultaneously to federal investigators, three newspapers, two television networks, and an attorney outside South Carolina.
Nathan would never again trust a secret to one person.
Whitmore fired.
Nathan dove.
Chaos exploded.
Rachel knocked her chair sideways.
Vivian kicked one of Whitmore’s men behind the knee.
Nathan reached Rachel.
A bullet struck the concrete beside his hand.
Then another gunshot sounded.
The man aiming at Nathan fell.
Caleb stood behind him.
Blood covered one sleeve.
“Took you long enough,” Nathan shouted.
Caleb grimaced.
“I was tied to a forklift.”
Nathan cut Rachel free.
Whitmore ran toward the rear loading dock.
Nathan followed.
Samuel shouted for him to stop.
He didn't.
Whitmore reached the river.
No escape vehicle waited.
He turned with his gun raised.
Nathan aimed his own weapon.
For several seconds the two men faced each other.
Whitmore laughed.
“You think this ends because you sent some files?”
“It ends because everyone you owned knows their names are public.”
“You'll go down too.”
“Maybe.”
Nathan meant it.
The records contained Holloway crimes.
Some happened before Nathan took control.
Others had happened under his watch.
He had spent years pretending legitimacy could erase history.
It couldn't.
Whitmore smiled.
“You'd destroy your own empire?”
Nathan thought of Emma barefoot in the rain.
“Yes.”
Whitmore fired.
Nathan moved.
The bullet grazed his shoulder.
Nathan fired once.
Whitmore’s gun flew from his hand.
Federal agents rushed the dock.
Whitmore fell to his knees.
Alive.
Nathan deliberately kept him that way.
Death would have been too simple.
Handcuffs closed around Charles Whitmore's wrists.
For the first time in decades, he had no one left to call who could make consequences disappear.
Nathan returned to Rachel.
She touched the blood on his shoulder.
“You're hurt.”
“Barely.”
Then Emma ran into the warehouse.
Nathan's heart stopped.
Luke followed.
“I told you to stay at the hospital!”
“Federal agents cleared the site.”
Luke pointed at Emma.
“And she threatened to walk here.”
Emma threw herself into Nathan.
He lifted her despite the pain.
“You promised.”
“I came back.”
Rachel embraced them both.
Luke stood several feet away.
A father looking at his daughter inside another father's arms.
Emma noticed.
She reached one hand toward him.
Luke stepped closer.
She took his fingers.
Not an embrace.
Not yet.
But something.
Nathan thought the nightmare might finally be ending.
Then Caleb approached.
His expression destroyed that hope.
“Nathan.”
“What?”
“We opened Edward's archive.”
Nathan looked at him.
“And?”
“There is one final recording.”
“For me?”
Caleb shook his head.
“For Emma.”
Luke went pale.
Caleb lowered his voice.
“And based on the timestamp, Edward recorded it the night before Luke's boat exploded.”
Emma looked between them.
“What does Grandpa say?”
Caleb hesitated.
Nathan had promised her truth.
“Play it.”
They gathered around Caleb’s phone.
Edward Holloway appeared.
His face was gaunt.
His voice weak.
“Emma, if Nathan is showing you this, then Charles Whitmore has probably been stopped.”
Nathan exchanged a glance with Luke.
Edward continued.
“But there is one truth none of them know.”
Luke frowned.
Edward stared into the camera.
“Elena Marquez was not murdered because of the evidence she found.”
A pause.
“She was murdered because of who Emma really is.”
Nathan's blood went cold.
Edward continued.
“And Luke…”
Luke stepped closer.
“I am sorry.”
The recording cut to black.
One final file name appeared.
DNA REPORT — E.M.
May you like
Nathan stared at Luke.
Emma whispered, “What does that mean?”
