Chapter 17 - Back to the House
We entered Whitmore House at midnight.
Not through the front door.
Through an old storm tunnel Samuel had used decades earlier.
The mansion above us was silent.
I could almost smell the breakfast Barbara had ordered me to cook that morning.
It felt like another lifetime.
Ethan touched the basement wall.
“I grew up here.”
“And never knew this existed?”
“My father liked locked doors.”
Samuel found the hidden control room behind the wine cellar.
Rows of old servers filled the underground chamber.
Thomas had modernized them.
Screens displayed financial accounts.
Companies.
Politicians.
Judges.
Every secret that had passed through his network.
Samuel whispered, “This is enough to bury him.”
“Not if he destroys it.”
I connected my father’s authorization device.
The system recognized me immediately.
MERCER CUSTODIAN ONLINE.
Then another prompt appeared.
MERGE EXTERNAL WHITMORE ARCHIVE?
Ethan looked at me.
“If you merge them, Thomas’s records become part of your protected archive.”
“And he can’t delete them.”
“Exactly.”
I pressed YES.
Alarms began sounding throughout the house.
So much for stealth.
Thomas’s voice came through the speakers.
“Claire.”
I continued uploading.
“Do you know what you just did?”
“Yes.”
“You condemned hundreds of people.”
“No.”
“They condemned themselves.”
Footsteps thundered above us.
Samuel locked the control room door.
Upload progress:
31%.
Thomas continued.
“Some of those people are dangerous.”
“I noticed.”
“You think publishing secrets makes you brave?”
“No.”
“I think keeping them secret made everyone else powerful.”
46%.
Ethan suddenly stared at another screen.
“Claire.”
“What?”
An internal camera showed Barbara.
She was alive.
Bandaged.
Locked in the upstairs study.
Beside her sat Olivia.
My stomach dropped.
“How did they get Olivia?”
Samuel cursed.
Thomas had returned to the farmhouse after we left.
Olivia must have stayed behind too long gathering documents.
Thomas’s voice came through the speaker.
“Stop the upload.”
“Or?”
The camera shifted.
A man stood behind Olivia.
Thomas did not need to finish the threat.
Ethan reached toward the computer.
I caught his wrist.
“If we stop, he wins.”
“That’s my sister.”
“I know.”
“She lost seventeen years because of him.”
“I know.”
Upload:
63%.
Ethan’s breathing became ragged.
Thomas said, “Choose carefully, son.”
That was his favorite weapon.
Make someone choose between two unbearable outcomes.
I looked at Ethan.
Then at the security system.
Then at the old house blueprint.
My father’s company had renovated Whitmore House twenty years earlier.
Which meant he might have built the same thing here that he built everywhere.
Hidden routes.
Emergency releases.
I searched the control interface.
There.
FIRE CONTAINMENT OVERRIDE.
I triggered it.
Every interior door unlocked simultaneously.
Sprinklers exploded.
Lights flashed.
Barbara pushed herself out of the study.
Olivia attacked the distracted guard.
Ethan stared at the screen.
“She’s free.”
Upload:
91%.
Thomas screamed through the speaker.
“You stupid little—”
The system reached 100%.
MERGE COMPLETE.
Then the control room door blew inward.
Thomas walked through the smoke.
He held a gun.
May you like
And he aimed it at Ethan.
---
