Chapter 6 - The Sister Everyone Blamed
Adrian moved first.
Emily grabbed his sleeve.
“Wait.”
“My son is out there.”
“I know.”
Another gunshot cracked through the trees.
Then Claire shouted again.
“Adrian, don’t come out!”
That stopped him.
Not because he trusted Claire.
Because if she wanted to lure him outside, she would tell him the opposite.
Benjamin shut the cabin door.
“They’ll surround the house.”
“How many exits?” Adrian asked.
“Three if the lake isn’t completely frozen.”
“It is,” Marcus said through Adrian’s earpiece.
Benjamin pointed toward the kitchen.
“Then two.”
Emily looked at him.
“You said Claire protected you.”
Benjamin nodded.
“She found me six years ago.”
Adrian turned slowly.
“What?”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“Obviously not.”
Benjamin looked genuinely confused.
“She said she couldn’t.”
A bullet shattered one of the front windows.
Everyone dropped.
Adrian pulled Emily behind a wall.
Marcus’s men returned fire outside.
“Tunnel,” Adrian ordered.
Benjamin moved a rug beneath the kitchen table.
A steel hatch appeared.
Emily stared.
“This isn’t a cabin.”
Benjamin almost smiled.
“No.”
“It’s a safe house.”
He opened the hatch.
A narrow stairway descended into darkness.
Adrian touched his earpiece.
“Marcus, fall back to the south entrance.”
Static.
Then Marcus replied.
“Can’t. They have Noah.”
Adrian froze.
Emily’s stomach dropped.
“Visual?”
“Thirty yards north. Two men. Claire is with him.”
Adrian’s jaw clenched.
“Is she armed?”
“Yes.”
“Pointing at Noah?”
“No.”
That mattered.
Benjamin looked toward the broken window.
“She won’t hurt him.”
Adrian stared at him.
“You sound certain.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
Benjamin hesitated.
“Because she’s the one who taught me how to disappear.”
Emily did not have time to process that.
A vehicle engine roared outside.
Then came a man’s amplified voice.
Victor Hale.
“Adrian.”
Everyone went silent.
“You have something that belongs to us.”
Adrian moved toward the window.
Emily caught his arm again.
He glanced down at her hand.
She released him slowly.
“You’re more useful alive,” she whispered.
Something in his eyes changed.
Not softness exactly.
But recognition.
He remained behind cover.
Hale continued.
“Send Benjamin out and your son goes home.”
Benjamin laughed bitterly.
“He’s been saying that for sixteen years.”
Adrian looked at him.
“What?”
Benjamin crouched near the wall.
“Margaret told me the truth.”
“Which truth?”
“Victor Hale wanted me dead before I was born.”
Emily stared.
Benjamin continued.
“Thomas promised Rebecca he’d protect her. He didn’t.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“What did he do?”
“He signed the order transferring her.”
“Where?”
“St. Catherine’s psychiatric wing.”
Emily felt sick.
Her aunt had not died.
She had been confined.
Benjamin nodded as though reading her face.
“She spent eight years there under another name.”
“Is she alive?” Emily whispered.
He looked at her.
“No.”
The answer landed painfully despite Emily barely remembering Rebecca.
“How?”
“Hale found her.”
Adrian’s expression became cold.
“And Claire?”
“Claire found me first.”
Outside, Hale called again.
“Five minutes.”
Benjamin continued quietly.
“Claire hated me when she first learned about me. Margaret told me that.”
Adrian gave a short, humorless breath.
“That part I believe.”
“But after Thomas died, Claire found his records.”
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
The timing struck Emily.
The same year Daniel Dawson died.
Benjamin looked at her.
“She found Michael Vale’s trail. It led to your stepfather.”
Emily’s heart accelerated.
“Daniel.”
“He had the airplane.”
“No. My mother had it.”
“After he died.”
Emily closed her eyes.
Daniel had found the truth.
Claire found Daniel.
Then Daniel died.
She looked at Adrian.
He understood where her mind had gone.
“Don’t decide before we know.”
Emily nodded.
Benjamin continued.
“Claire came here after Michael’s old caretaker contacted her.”
“Caretaker?” Adrian asked.
“Samuel Ward.”
“Is he here?”
Benjamin shook his head.
“He died two years ago.”
Adrian sat back against the wall.
“My sister protected my father’s secret child for six years.”
Benjamin nodded.
“Why?”
Benjamin looked toward the darkness outside.
“Because she realized Hale was going to kill everyone who knew.”
A gunshot struck the porch.
One minute remained.
Adrian’s phone vibrated.
A text from Claire.
I can get Noah to the east side. Trust me once.
Adrian stared.
Emily read it.
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Will you?”
He looked toward the woods.
“For Noah.”
Outside, Hale began counting down.
“Sixty seconds.”
Adrian gave orders quickly.
Marcus would shift south.
Two men would create noise near the lake.
Benjamin and Emily would use the tunnel to exit east.
Emily objected.
“No.”
Adrian looked at her.
“Not now.”
“I’m not running while Noah is out there.”
“You’re taking Benjamin.”
“I’m not your employee right now.”
One corner of his mouth almost moved.
“This is an inconvenient time to renegotiate your job.”
Despite everything, Emily nearly smiled.
Then she saw his eyes.
He was terrified.
Not for himself.
For Noah.
She softened.
“I’ll get Benjamin out.”
Adrian nodded once.
Then handed her the phone linked to his security frequency.
“If I say run, run.”
Emily and Benjamin entered the tunnel.
It extended beneath the frozen ground for roughly a hundred yards.
The air smelled of damp earth and old metal.
Halfway through, Benjamin spoke.
“He talks about you.”
Emily looked back.
“Who?”
“Noah.”
Her heart squeezed.
“I met him twice.”
“What?”
“Claire brought him here.”
Emily stopped.
“When?”
“Last summer. She said he needed somewhere quiet after Adrian traveled.”
Emily remembered that trip.
Adrian had been overseas for ten days.
Claire claimed Noah stayed at her lake house.
“Why?”
Benjamin smiled faintly.
“He wanted to meet his uncle.”
Emily stared.
“Noah knows who you are?”
“Not exactly. Claire told him I was family.”
That explained why Noah knew strange details about Margaret’s keys.
Why he watched Claire.
Why he was less surprised by secrets than a nine-year-old should be.
They reached the tunnel exit.
Snow covered the hidden hatch.
Benjamin pushed it open.
Dark woods.
Emily listened to the radio.
Marcus’s voice.
“Movement north.”
Then Adrian.
“Claire, now.”
Gunfire erupted.
Emily flinched.
A child shouted.
Noah.
She nearly turned back.
Benjamin caught her.
“Wait.”
Static.
Then Claire’s voice came over the frequency.
“I have him!”
Adrian: “Move east!”
More shots.
Marcus shouted coordinates.
Then silence.
Emily’s breathing became shallow.
“Adrian?”
Nothing.
“Adrian?”
Static.
Then Noah’s voice.
“Emily?”
She almost collapsed.
“Noah.”
“I’m okay.”
“Where’s your dad?”
Silence.
“Noah?”
Claire answered.
“He’s hit.”
Emily stopped breathing.
“How bad?”
“I don’t know.”
She ran.
Benjamin followed.
They reached the east tree line within two minutes.
Claire was kneeling in the snow beside Adrian.
Noah crouched near his father’s head.
Blood covered the shoulder of Adrian’s coat.
Emily dropped beside him.
His eyes opened.
“You were supposed to run.”
Relief hit her so violently she almost laughed.
“You’re impossible.”
“Apparently.”
The bullet had passed through the upper shoulder.
Painful.
Bloody.
But not immediately life-threatening.
Claire pressed fabric against the wound.
Emily looked at her.
“You saved him.”
Claire’s expression was exhausted.
“I’ve been trying to save this family for eleven years.”
Adrian opened his eyes.
“You have an interesting method.”
Claire almost cried.
Then Marcus appeared.
“Hale’s vehicles are retreating.”
“Let them,” Adrian said.
Marcus looked surprised.
Adrian continued.
“They’ll go where we need them to go.”
Claire stared.
“You tagged them?”
“No.”
He looked at Benjamin.
“Claire did.”
Everyone turned.
Claire slowly reached into her coat and showed them a small tracking transmitter.
“I put it under Victor’s car before he took Noah.”
Adrian studied his sister.
For the first time all night, the certainty in his anger shifted.
Not forgiveness.
Something harder.
Doubt.
Claire looked at Emily.
“I did plant the accusation.”
“I know.”
“I disabled the corridor camera.”
“I know.”
“I threatened you.”
Emily said nothing.
Claire looked ashamed.
“I thought if Adrian fired you, you’d leave before Hale found out who you were.”
“That’s your defense?”
“No.”
Claire shook her head.
“It’s the truth. Not a defense.”
Adrian sat up with difficulty.
“Then give us all of it.”
Claire looked at him.
“The person who sent that hospital video wasn’t Hale.”
“Who?”
“Mom.”
Margaret.
Everyone became still.
Claire continued.
“She wanted you to find Door 317.”
“Why didn’t she simply tell me?”
“Because she doesn’t trust you.”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
Claire looked at Benjamin.
“She doesn’t trust any Blackwood man.”
“That’s understandable,” Benjamin said quietly.
Claire nodded.
“But there’s more.”
She turned to Emily.
“Your father didn’t die fifteen years ago.”
Emily felt the world tilt again.
“What?”
“Michael Vale survived.”
“No.”
“He disappeared.”
“My mother saw his body.”
Claire shook her head.
“Your mother saw a closed coffin.”
Emily remembered.
She had been sixteen.
Rain.
A church.
A coffin nobody opened because the body was supposedly badly damaged.
Claire continued.
“Michael was alive at least seven years ago.”
Emily could not speak.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I met him.”
“Where?”
“Chicago.”
“When?”
“The night before Daniel Dawson died.”
Emily stared.
The trees seemed to disappear around her.
“What did Michael want?”
Claire’s eyes filled with tears.
“To take Benjamin somewhere Hale could never find him.”
“Did Daniel help him?”
“Yes.”
Emily could barely form the next question.
“Who killed Daniel?”
Claire looked toward Adrian.
Then back to Emily.
“Michael.”
Emily slapped her.
The sound cracked through the snowy woods.
Nobody moved.
Claire accepted it.
Emily’s hand trembled.
“No.”
Claire’s cheek turned red.
“I saw them together.”
“No.”
“Daniel learned Michael was alive.”
“No.”
“They argued.”
“No.”
“Emily—”
“No!”
Adrian reached for her with his uninjured arm.
Emily stepped away.
Then Claire said the one thing that made her stop.
“Daniel left you a recording.”
Emily turned.
Claire wiped blood from the corner of her lip.
“Hale has it.”
“Why?”
“Because Daniel recorded Michael confessing.”
Emily stared at her.
“To what?”
Claire’s voice dropped.
“To building the entire Door 317 system.”
And somewhere beneath the confusion and grief, Emily understood the new nightmare.
May you like
Her father had not been hiding from the Blackwoods.
He might have helped create the secrets destroying them.
