CHAPTER 9 — THE LOYAL FRIEND
Dr. Samuel Reyes had treated me since I was nineteen.
He was not only my doctor.
He had been my mother’s friend.
Thomas Harlan had taken him from the hospital during the power failure.
The attack on Celeste had been a distraction.
Thomas instructed my father to bring the recorder to an abandoned Vale Meridian data center outside Newark.
No federal agents.
No tracking devices.
My father agreed before Mercer could stop him.
“You’re not going alone,” I said.
“I am.”
“He expects you to.”
“That is why he may let Reyes live.”
“No. That is why he will control the meeting.”
Dad looked at me.
“You have already suffered enough.”
“That sentence has never stopped you from making decisions for me.”
The words struck him.
I softened my voice but not my meaning.
“This ends with both of us.”
Mercer prepared a covert operation despite Thomas’s instructions.
The recorder we carried was a copy.
The original remained inside a federal evidence vault.
Nathan offered information about the data center’s underground access tunnels.
In exchange, he wanted the prosecutor to recognize his assistance.
Mercer agreed to document it.
Nothing more.
Before we left, Nathan asked to speak to me alone.
His wrists remained cuffed to the table.
For once, he did not look powerful.
“I didn’t know about your mother,” he said.
“You knew about the life insurance policy.”
His eyes dropped.
“Yes.”
“You knew Adrian wanted my shares.”
“Yes.”
“You knew the punishment might kill me.”
Silence.
I stepped closer.
“Say it.”
Nathan’s voice broke.
“Yes.”
There it was.
Not madness.
Not anger.
Choice.
Two hundred choices.
“I kept telling myself you would sign,” he whispered. “I thought you would surrender before—”
“Before you finished?”
He looked away.
“I loved you once.”
“No,” I said. “You loved the woman who made you feel admired.”
“I can help you.”
“You can tell the truth. That is the only useful thing left in you.”
As I turned away, Nathan spoke again.
“Thomas is going to ask your father about Geneva.”
I stopped.
“The meeting?”
“It wasn’t an investigation. Thomas arranged it. Your father offered me money to leave you.”
My father had never mentioned that.
“How much?”
“Ten million.”
I looked back.
“And you refused?”
Nathan gave me a hollow smile.
“I asked for twenty.”
The data center stood abandoned beneath a sky heavy with storm clouds.
My father and I entered through the main doors.
Thomas waited in the server hall with Dr. Reyes tied to a chair.
He held a pistol against the doctor’s neck.
“You brought Isabella,” Thomas said.
“I made the choice,” I replied.
Thomas looked almost proud.
“Evelyn’s daughter.”
My father held up the recorder.
“Release him.”
Thomas shook his head.
“First, tell her about Geneva.”
I looked at Dad.
He remained silent.
May you like
Thomas smiled.
“Tell your daughter why you paid Nathan to disappear.”
