Chapter 9 - THE TRAITOR'S SIDE
Thomas stared at Evan.
“You shot at me in the forest.”
“I missed.”
“You held a gun on my wife.”
“Because Keene was watching from the ridge.”
Sarah shook her head.
“You asked for Lucy.”
“I needed him to think I was still following orders.”
Thomas looked furious.
“You could have told me.”
Evan laughed bitterly.
“With what phone?”
“The department line Keene monitors?”
“Your house that had three listening devices?”
“Your car with a tracker?”
Thomas said nothing.
Evan reloaded.
“I’ve been undercover inside the Circle for eleven months.”
Arthur stared at him.
“For whom?”
“Reese.”
Marian whispered.
“The federal agent.”
Evan nodded.
“Before they killed him.”
Sarah struggled to process another reversal.
“So you’re not the traitor?”
Evan looked at Thomas.
“Oh, I’m a traitor.”
“Just not to him.”
He pointed upstairs toward Keene.
“I betrayed them.”
Gunfire cracked above.
Arthur opened the steel door.
“Inside.”
They moved into a narrow archive room.
Hundreds of old cassette tapes lined the walls.
Photographs.
Birth records.
Sealed envelopes.
Thomas stared.
“This is everything.”
Arthur shook his head.
“This is the part I managed to preserve.”
Rebecca approached one shelf.
Her hand trembled as she touched a box labeled LANE, REBECCA.
Sarah watched her.
Twenty-three years of stolen life existed inside that box.
Evan barricaded the door.
“We need to leave now.”
Thomas grabbed his arm.
“One question.”
Evan looked at him.
“The forest.”
“You hit me with the flashlight.”
“You needed an injury visible enough to support the story that I attacked you.”
Thomas stared at him.
“You could’ve warned me.”
Evan’s voice hardened.
“And Keene would’ve killed Sarah and Lucy before you reached the tree line.”
Thomas released him.
Trust wasn’t restored.
But the truth had shifted.
Sarah opened Rebecca’s box.
Inside was an infant photograph.
Her photograph.
Wrapped in the same yellow blanket Sarah’s adoptive mother had kept in a cedar chest her entire childhood.
Sarah looked at Rebecca.
“You gave me that?”
“I begged a nurse to keep it with you.”
Marian nodded.
“I was that nurse.”
Sarah’s eyes filled.
Then Thomas found another file.
HALE, THOMAS.
He froze.
“Why am I in here?”
Arthur went pale.
“Leave that.”
Thomas pulled it down.
Inside was a birth certificate.
His name appeared.
His mother’s name appeared.
But Arthur Hale was not listed as the father.
The father’s line read:
MALCOLM VOSS.
Thomas stared at Arthur.
The former sheriff.
The murderer Rebecca had witnessed.
The man who helped corrupt Veil House.
Thomas whispered.
“Tell me this is fake.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
“I wish I could.”
Sarah stared at her husband.
Thomas Hale had spent his entire career hunting the legacy of Malcolm Voss.
Now he had learned Malcolm Voss was his biological father.
And upstairs, Judge Keene began shouting.
May you like
“Bring me Voss’s son alive!”
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