Chapter 8 - THE DEAD MAN
Thomas dropped his gun hand slightly.
“Dad?”
Arthur Hale smiled.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakably alive.
Thomas looked as though someone had struck him.
“I buried you.”
“No.”
“You buried a closed casket.”
Sarah stared between them.
Thomas’s father had supposedly died in a boating accident.
They held a funeral.
Thomas had carried the folded flag.
Arthur stepped into the basement.
“Put the weapon down, son.”
Thomas raised it again.
“Who are you?”
“Still your father.”
“Are you Circle?”
Arthur looked almost offended.
“I built the part of it you’re standing in.”
Silence followed.
Rebecca closed her eyes.
Sarah understood.
“You knew.”
Rebecca nodded.
Arthur continued.
“Veil began as a legitimate witness-protection location.”
“We moved women whose lives were in immediate danger.”
“We hid children from violent fathers.”
“We created identities when court systems failed them.”
Thomas stared at him.
“Then you started selling those identities.”
Arthur’s face hardened.
“That came later.”
“Keene.”
“Voss.”
“Others.”
“And you?”
Arthur didn’t answer.
Thomas stepped closer.
“Did you steal Sarah from Rebecca?”
“No.”
“Did you know?”
“Yes.”
Thomas looked devastated.
“How long?”
“Since before you met her.”
Sarah felt something shift.
“What did you say?”
Arthur looked at her.
“I knew who you were when Thomas brought you home.”
Thomas turned toward Sarah.
“I swear I didn’t.”
She believed him.
His shock was too complete.
Arthur explained that Thomas meeting Sarah had been coincidence.
At first.
Afterward, Arthur recognized Rebecca in Sarah’s face.
He secretly confirmed her identity.
He told no one because he believed the old Circle had dissolved.
He was wrong.
Natalie Briggs contacted him years later.
She discovered Veil House was still operating.
Arthur faked his death to investigate without exposing Thomas.
Thomas shook his head.
“You let me think you were dead for eight years.”
“I thought grief was safer than knowledge.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“No.”
Arthur’s voice broke slightly.
“I don’t.”
Footsteps sounded upstairs.
Rebecca whispered.
“Keene will notice I’m gone.”
Arthur pulled a keycard from his pocket.
“There’s a tunnel beneath the east foundation.”
Thomas didn’t move.
“Why should we trust you?”
“You shouldn’t.”
Arthur handed him the card.
“But if you stay, Lucy will disappear before sunrise.”
Sarah stepped forward.
“What does transfer pending mean?”
Arthur looked at Lucy.
“It means Keene has already prepared another identity for her.”
Sarah’s arms tightened around the baby.
“He plans to take my daughter?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Thomas stared at his father.
“You said you built this place.”
Arthur looked toward a locked steel door at the far end of the basement.
“I also built the room behind that door.”
“What’s inside?”
Arthur’s face changed.
“The reason they faked my death before I could fake it myself.”
Before anyone could ask what he meant, the basement door exploded open.
Evan rushed in.
Gun raised.
“Everybody down!”
Then he turned and fired up the staircase.
Not at Thomas.
May you like
At the men chasing him.
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